AI, Humanities and the Future of Work

What it is

A newsletter written by Shae O. Omonijo, who describes herself as "a historian, public educator, and humanist exploring how history, ideas, and technology shape what it means to be human." The stated remit is clarity and research-backed insight for people who want to stay smart, adaptable and human as AI moves through their work.

Who runs it

Omonijo is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Harvard University*, with a B.A. in Political Science with Honors from the University of Chicago. She created _Critical Thinking in the Age of AI_, a public scholarship series, and founded *Analog Social, a media and wellness venture incubated at Harvard Innovation Labs. That combination matters to how the writing reads: the analysis is archival-historian methodical, but the delivery is direct and unfussy rather than academic.

Who it is for

The About page names educators, creators and professionals. People who have to make decisions about these tools without a research budget or an institutional login. It is not a tools-and-tips newsletter, though practical posts appear regularly.

What you actually get

The range is wider than the title suggests. Recent posts include:

- "Did you pay your intelligence bill this month?" on the utility of intelligence

- "The Cost of Critical Thinking and Why We Must Pay It" on the risk of cognitive annihilation

- "Don't under any circumstance upload your financial data to ChatGPT" with a more private alternative

- "How to Actually Do Research in the Age of AI", a practical guide for anyone who wants to think rigorously without a university login

- "why is everyone suddenly in love with the humanities"

- "3 Tools I Use Almost Every Day to Save Hundreds on Software Subscriptions"

So: essays on cognition and the humanities sitting alongside genuinely practical operational posts about privacy and research method. That mix is the point rather than an inconsistency. The argument running underneath is that rigour is a practice, not a mood.

Some posts are paywalled beyond the opening section.

Why it matters

There is no shortage of AI commentary. There is a shortage of AI commentary written by someone trained to check whether a source exists. Omonijo's historian's habits, meaning provenance, citation and the willingness to spend two days in an archive confirming a footnote, are exactly the habits the current information environment is eroding, and she writes about that erosion from inside the discipline rather than from the sidelines.

For anyone building media literacy work, this is a useful ongoing source rather than a one-off link: it models the method as well as arguing for it.

What to read first

- "How to Actually Do Research in the Age of AI" if you want something immediately usable.

- "The Cost of Critical Thinking and Why We Must Pay It" if you want the underlying argument about why difficulty is worth keeping.

Key takeaways

- Written by a Harvard History PhD candidate and founder, aimed at educators, creators and professionals rather than at the AI industry.

- Mixes essays on cognition and the humanities with practical posts on privacy, research method and tooling.

- Best treated as a subscription, not a single read. The value is in the accumulated method.

Photo by Nationaal Archief on Unsplash