Fortune magazine editor speaks at Farber Hall about liberal arts

Fortune magazine senior editor-at-large Geoff Colvin spoke in Farber Hall Thursday night as part of the celebration of liberal arts education that has been happening throughout the week on campus at USD. Colvin is an author and a native of Vermillion.

Colvin spoke about how machines will never be able to have the deep interactions that humans have with one another or the empathy that humans have. This highlighted the ideas he talks about in his book, “Humans are Underrated.”

“We are now facing one of the largest questions of our time,” Colvin said. “What will people do better than computers?”

This theme was present throughout Colvin’s speech about liberal arts education, and how people can learn the skills of human interaction through that education.

“It turns out that people want to develop the skills of human interaction,” he said. “The liberal arts are the ideal way to prepare people for this.”

Colvin ended his talk by saying the bottom line message people have what it takes to be successful.

“It is now up to us to make as much of it as we possibly can,” he said.