Reed Hastings, whose video-streaming service Netflix Inc. helped pioneer the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in determining viewers’ tastes, is donating $50 million to his alma mater, liberal arts school Bowdoin College, to fund AI research and teaching within “ethical frameworks.”
The gift, the largest in the college’s 231-year history, “seeks to advance Bowdoin’s mission of cultivating wisdom for the common good by deepening the college’s engagement with one of humanity’s most transformative developments: artificial intelligence,” said Hastings in a statement.
The Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity will “be a step forward in higher education’s growing role to provide ethical frameworks for technology,” according to Bowdoin. The college plans to start with the hiring of 10 faculty members in a range of disciplines; support current faculty who want to incorporate and interrogate AI in their teaching and research; and discuss the changes and challenges AI will bring through workshops, symposia and support for student research.
“We are thrilled and so grateful to receive this remarkable support from Reed, who shares our conviction that the AI revolution makes the liberal arts and a Bowdoin education more essential to society,” Bowdoin College President Safa Zaki said in a statement.
In essence, Hastings wants researchers and students to ask deep questions about AI and its potential to upend their majors and careers. One of the areas expected to be altered most significantly is liberal arts, where content creation is paramount.
Hastings’ donation is significant at a time when educators are trying to better understand a technology that promises — and threatens — to upturn nearly every field globally. What is becoming most troubling is the speed with which AI is being developed to not just pump out content, do everyday research and analyze data but think and reason more like humans.
In recent days, Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Elon Musk’s xAI have unveiled deep-reasoning agents for their chatbots to do higher levels of research — with or without people.
Enterprises, meanwhile, find themselves scrambling to train their workers in AI basics through skilling initiatives. One such company, Cisco Systems Inc., is making it mandatory for its thousands of employees to get up to speed on working with AI in their tasks.
At the same time, some states are taking the initiative in AI upskilling. Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced a partnership with NVIDIA Corp. that, among other goals, aims to train students, educators and workers on AI use.
