The National Endowment For The Humanities (NEH) announced on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, that it has awarded grants totaling $2.7 million to five U.S. colleges and universities to create new humanities-led research centers to examine the cultural implications of AI.
AI has the capability to transform every facet of human life, and raises profound questions about its impact on society and individuals. Those questions have been discussed at dinner tables, annual tech conferences and at the federal government level, where its potential misuse has spurred some policymakers to propose AI guardrails. The NEH initiative is a response to President Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, which establishes new standards for AI safety, security and privacy, and advances equity and civil rights.
“The rapid development of artificial intelligence has far-reaching consequences for American society, culture and democracy,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe. “The humanities provide the ethical compass and historical context to help us understand the full implications of AI technologies, giving both creators and users of AI the necessary tools to navigate its risks; and rewards responsibly, critically and deliberately. Through NEH’s Humanities Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence initiative and these new grants, NEH is fostering much-needed research to help guide technology developers, policymakers and the public in the responsible and ethical development and adoption of AI.”
Adam Thierer, Senior Research Fellow at the R Street Institute, a “leading think tank focused on solving complex public policy challenges through free markets and limited, effective government,” said in an interview with Techstrong AI, that he hopes the research centers will “offer a balanced take on the impact of AI and explore the profound benefits these technologies can offer us in terms of expanding economic opportunities, helping boost human health and well-being, and improving our society and economy in many other ways.”
Mr. Thierer added, “Too many academic research centers today only look at the hypothetical downsides of AI and adopt chicken little tactics about the sky falling on our heads when, in reality, things have never looked brighter. Hopefully, our tax dollars are supporting balanced research and not just more AI-bashing hysteria.”
The institutions that received grants include The University of California, Davis, awarded $499,717, Bard College in New York, awarded $500,000, North Carolina State University, awarded $500,000, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, awarded $498,129, and the University of Richmond, Virginia, awarded $491,863.
The project directors have already been selected, as has the area of concentration. For example, at North Carolina State University, Veljko Dubljevic, will serve as the project leader. He is a University Faculty Scholar, Professor of Philosophy and Science, Technology & Society, in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The center will be called the EASE Center, short for Embedding AI in Society Ethically. The focus will be on ethical considerations related to autonomous vehicles, Large Language Models, and AI-based technologies for eldercare.
“This is extremely important because most of the funding going into AI was going into the basic science or development of technologies…my own research was primarily funded by the National Science Foundation,” Professor Dubljevic said. “In terms of having support to do the ethical and philosophical reflection, what this means for humanity and where AI is going to lead us, it’s very important, because prior to the NEH projects that are being funded, or solicitation for research projects, there wasn’t much support for that kind of research; and I’m really glad that this is on the books, and even more glad that our team received these funds. I know that competition was very, very tough.”
The grant will allow the EASE Center to create a postdoctoral fellow mentoring program, a new graduate minor in AI ethics, an annual conference, and publications related to the Center’s research focus.
Since launching the Humanities Perspective on Artificial Intelligence in October 2023, NEH has awarded almost $4 million in funding to support research on “the promises and pitfalls of AI technologies, on the development of AI tools and methods to investigate humanities topics and resources, and training and curriculum projects that increase AI literacy among humanities scholars and the public.”
At The University of Oklahoma, Dr. Hunter Heyck, a Professor of History of Science in the Department of History of Science Technology and Medicine, said the NEH grant money will start arriving on July 1, 2025. Dr. Heyck will serve as the Project Director but said in an interview with Techstrong AI that there will be two other faculty members who will share in the oversight of the project. There will also be 17 other faculty members involved, from across six colleges at OU. There will be one graduate student at the Center, and the hope is to scale up to increase the number of graduate students and to start a postdoctoral program, but that would require additional funding she said.
“One of the most exciting things about this project, for me, has been the intellectual ferment that has come from bringing together so many creative scholars from different fields.”
Dr. Heyck said she is hopeful that the grant money, which will be dispersed by NEH over three years, will seed a permanent center, either as a stand-alone or part of a larger Center for the Study of Emerging Technologies.
“Technology and culture each make each other, all the time,” said Dr. Heyck. “That is why it is so important for us to understand technological change in its full human context, and that is why this NEH program is so exciting and so timely. To this end, our proposal uniquely combines Native American arts and humanities with the strengths of the Department of History of Science, Technology and Medicine and School of Visual Arts’ art and technology program to create a Center that could only exist at OU. By leveraging the expertise of these programs, and a wealth of talent across OU, I believe we can provide novel answers to vital questions related to creativity and authenticity in the age of generative AI. In addition, we hope to be a model for the creation of nimble, interdisciplinary centers that connect the core concerns and unique perspectives of the arts and humanities to the vital issues of the day.”
