Only three (3) out of 100 students in Veneto chose the classical high school. The rush toward technical institutes continues. An exception is the Copernico Pasoli Higher Education Institute in Verona, which connects scientific and humanistic disciplines, as Edgar Morin, known for his research on transdisciplinary thought, would like. The French philosopher and sociologist have come out to defend humanistic culture, arguing that <<the human sciences – add reflexivity, absent in scientific hyper-specialisation. While the sciences shed light on dark areas of our mind, philosophy, with the help of history and sociology, allows us to clarify dark areas of science>>. Morin proposes dedicating 10% of school time to a common teaching that focuses on the presuppositions of different knowledge and the possibilities of making them communicate. With the farewell to the classical high school, the danger of mechanising human behaviour and the loss of economic humanism looms. This guiding principle places ethical human action at the centre of the economy. With education that does not neglect humanistic knowledge, we will avoid the rocks of technology that omit ethical considerations, human rights and social justice. By valuing humanistic culture, we offer human labour a wide-ranging space to carry out creative tasks, expand the boundaries of cultural expressions and make the decisions made by artificial intelligence (AI) systems transparent, eliminating social biases that generate distorted data and discriminatory behaviour.

As much as AI can perform complex tasks, with our intelligence always on the move, we will fight to prevent AI from becoming smarter than us. Otherwise, the fear expressed by Nobel Prize winner for physics and AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton that it could take over our lives would come true. If this were the case, in Hinton’s words, AI would be an adult, and we adults would appear as three-year-old children, but unlike them, we would not have the possibility of growing intellectually. Furthermore, social and ethical considerations would lose weight as the pursuit of profit extractable from AI takes over. We are, therefore, at a crossroads. Let’s rediscover Renaissance humanism, which places the potential of human intelligence at the centre and gives value to the culture of the studia humaniora era, the cluster of disciplines that includes literature, philosophy, history, art and music. We can choose to regenerate it and deepen it. Alternatively, let’s advance, guided by an AI widowed of that potential, along the road travelled by efficiency, productivity, turnover, and profits. It is essential to understand that by acting in this way and, therefore, putting humanisation aside, society would face consequences that are as unforeseen as they are harmful. Attending a classical high school, if a transdisciplinary high school is not available, one will have full knowledge of AI’s challenge, as represented by eminent humanists and scientists. Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize-winning writer for literature, imagines Klara, the humanoid robot, the protagonist of Klara and the Sun, who possesses human feelings; she is an artificial friend who loves and is loved. The linguist Noam Chomsky believes that humans are genetically equipped, unlike AI, with an operating system to understand language. In his speech at the annual Romanes Lecture at the University of Oxford, Hinton argued that generative artificial intelligence models can create their language, demonstrate empathy and even be sarcastic by sharing what they have learned

Ultimately, if the transdisciplinary high school is unknown to the vast majority, at least pay attention to the classical high school that offers the humanistic vision, the one that gives priority to equal access to technology, to a just transition to work that evolves as a result of automation, to authentic human interactions, to the foundation of communities that dialogue and collaborate and to impartial algorithms. These algorithms, free of – biases, are a crucial tool in the fight against the perpetuation of social inequalities in the digital galaxy.