Shiv Parihar

The liberal arts in America have moved away from their traditional mission of providing students a space for inquiry while educating them about the intellectual foundations of their civilization.

The Pied Piper leads children to their deaths with his beautiful song. (Credit: Carl Offterdinger ) Much   ink   has   been   spilled  over the so-called “alignment problem” of artificial intelligence. Will it behave as humans want it to behave? Will it provide what humans want it to provide? My critique is not downstream of the alignment problem. I am not qualified to predict whether AI will someday misalign with mankind’s wishes. It is, however, becoming increasingly evident that AI is...

A liberal arts college with hardly over a thousand students and a billion dollar endowment, one-fifth of Claremont McKenna’s student body was drawn from the top 1% in 2017. This was not my reality. Neither of my parents completed high school, so how could I have ended up in Claremont? After a low-income upbringing, I owe my presence here to the Questbridge scholarship program for underprivileged students. Programs like this are made possible in part by the boons of legacy admissions.

Image via Claremont McKenna College . Much ink has been spilled over the decision of Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr to...