Today, Bowdoin College announced a $50 million gift the largest in its 231-year history from Netflix cofounder and Powder Mountain CEO Reed Hastings (Bowdoin Class of 1983) to launch the Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity.
“This donation 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, who earned his MSc in artificial intelligence at Stanford in 1988. “As AI becomes smarter than humans, we are going to need some deep thinking to keep us flourishing. I know Bowdoin can make a significant contribution to these fundamental issues, and that President Zaki, a cognitive scientist, can lead the way.”
“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,” said Bowdoin College President Safa Zaki, whose research focuses on building and testing computational models of the mind.
The Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity will be a step forward in higher education’s growing role to provide ethical frameworks for technology and will ensure that Bowdoin students graduate well prepared to lead in a world reshaped by AI. Initial priorities include hiring ten new faculty members in a range of disciplines; supporting faculty who want to incorporate and interrogate AI in their teaching, research, and artistic work; and leading conversations about the uses of AI and the changes and challenges it will bring. Funding and fellowships will allow current and new faculty to explore questions and pedagogical and scholarship opportunities generated by the vast AI revolution.
“Bowdoin is ideally positioned to meet the challenges and opportunities of AI,” said Zaki. “Our deep commitment to the liberal arts and the common good position us to think together about what we are going to value in human cognition, and what we will want our AI systems to do or not do going forward in service to humanity. Ethics, human values, and human understanding should inform the technological progress, scientific advancements, and new norms that will emerge from this revolution. As educators, we have a moral imperative to do this work.” Hastings was first encouraged to study AI in 1982 by late professor of mathematics Steve Fisk as they walked by the Maine Hall dormitory talking about careers related to mathematics. “Steve was about 40 years too early, but his perspective was life-changing for me,” says Hastings.
