Lessons from the Luddite Age to AI: Harris Students Consider the Future of Data Analytics

In 1907, President Woodrow Wilson wrote that society was “bewildered, afraid of its own forces, in search, not merely for the road, but even of its direction.” He was speaking about the disruptions of the Second Industrial Revolution, but for Mark Polyak, Chief Product and Technology Officer at MINT.ai, it could just as easily have been written about today’s artificial intelligence boom.

“Those are the lessons of history,” Polyak said after showing slides presenting examples from Wilson, Elizabethan England, Sultan Bashir II and the beginnings of the printing press, and the Luddite rebellion. “With each new technology, you have created destruction of jobs, and unfortunately it's unavoidable. But one of the interesting things that you should know is that 60% of the jobs that exist today did not exist in 1940. Many of them have been created as a result of new technologies, as a result of creative destruction.”

That was just one of the vivid historical parallels Polyak offered during “Evolution of the Data Analytics Discipline,” a September 16 event co-hosted by the Harris Career Development Office (CDO) and Harris Executive Education & Partnerships (EEP) team. Together with Associate Professor Austin Wright, Polyak reminded Harris students that the tension between technological promise and social disruption is nothing new, and that those who thrive are those who learn to adapt, ask sharp questions, and focus on fundamentals.

Polyak made clear that his goal in speaking with Harris students was not only to demystify the state of AI, but also to offer practical guidance as they begin to chart their own careers. Drawing on his experience leading global data teams and now scaling a start-up, he urged students to think carefully about how they select courses, employers, and professional pathways. His advice emphasized that students should look for environments where they can apply their skills to real problems, continue learning, and position themselves to grow with the evolving discipline.

“When Deep Blue came out, Deep Blue was the first time an agent defeated the human. That was in 1997,” Polyak said, describing the chess-playing supercomputer that defeated chess master Garry Kasparov. Polyak was in the room when it happened, as his mother was one of Kasparov’s coaches.

“It was a watershed moment,” he said, noting that shortly thereafter, Kasparov claimed that a human and a machine, working together, would be able to win against any machine playing alone. “Sounds logical,” Polyak noted. “But the last time that a human and a machine was able to defeat a machine was in 2005 – that’s 20 years ago. We are probably going to see similar type of disruptions again over and over and over again. But people are still going to play chess.”

He noted that understanding that AI will certainly replace some skills, showing a slide which showed the skills that are expected to be most important in 2030, including creative thinking; resilience, flexibility, and agility; leadership and social influence; talent management; and self-awareness.

Wright, who teaches econometrics at Harris, tied those fundamentals back to the classroom. Courses like Stats II, he told students, don’t just prepare them for exams; they instill habits that last: rigorous reasoning, careful measurement, and skepticism toward the latest new trend.

Polyak reinforced Wright’s point with practical advice: AI is powerful, but many startups fail because workflows are brittle, data pipelines are unprepared, and business problems are ill-defined. Students who can spot those gaps, he said, will be valuable in any workplace.

The discussion also highlighted the many career paths available in analytics today. Polyak outlined four broad lanes: developing models and working with real or synthetic data; designing governance frameworks for privacy, security, and ethics; optimizing infrastructure for scale and cost; and shaping use cases that connect technology to business and policy outcomes.

Each of these, he noted, is influenced by strategic choices employers make: vertical versus horizontal platforms, open versus closed ecosystems (think Android or iPhone), privacy-first versus application-first approaches. For Harris students, understanding those trade-offs helps them evaluate opportunities and chart their own course.

Durable skills still matter most. Systems thinking, analytical rigor, and the ability to communicate clearly about data and its limits will carry students through waves of technological change. “The tools will keep shifting,” Wright observed, “but the fundamentals won’t.”

“The skillset that you’re going to build starting in Autumn Quarter is crucial when you think about the future, both of our society as well as the economic opportunities you’ll pursue,” Wright told the assembled students.

CDO and EEP organized the event not just to inform but to connect: to show students how the skills they are building translate into hiring markets in Chicago, Washington, DC, and around the globe. Through programming, as well as treks, coaching, and employer partnerships, CDO is helping Harris students pursue opportunities in emerging markets and established markets alike—in public service, international organizations, private firms, and nonprofits.

By anchoring skills in both history and practice, the session left students with a clear takeaway: AI may be transforming the landscape, but Harris—through its curriculum and through CDO’s market-facing support—equips students not just to adapt, but to lead.