Netflix's Reed Hastings gives $50 million to Bowdoin for AI program
Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings wants more researchers and students to ask deep questions about artificial intelligence and its potential to upend human norms.
To that end, Hastings has donated $50 million to Bowdoin College, his alma mater, to create a research initiative on «AI and Humanity» — the largest gift to the liberal arts college in Maine since its founding in 1794, the school announced Monday.
The aim of the program, Hastings and school officials said, is to make Bowdoin a mecca for studying the risks and consequences of AI. The initiative also aims to help prepare students to grapple with emerging technologies that can manufacture humanlike texts and even produce formulas for potential new drug compounds.
The idea for the program grew out of discussions over the last few months between Hastings and Bowdoin's president, Safa R. Zaki, a cognitive scientist, they said. Bowdoin plans to use part of the money to hire 10 faculty members and to support professors «who want to incorporate and interrogate AI» in their teaching and research.
In an interview, Hastings said it was urgent for more researchers to tackle such questions because of the speed of AI advances and the significant disruptions the systems could bring to human endeavors like work and relationships.
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«We're going to be fighting for the survival of humanity and the flourishing of humanity,» Hastings said. He compared AI to social networks, noting that social networking had grown so fast that few people initially understood the