Netflix co-founder gives Bowdoin College $50 million for "ethical" AI research

“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,” wrote Hastings in a statement. The co-founder went on to earn a masters in artificial intelligence from Stanford after graduating from Bowdoin. He continued: “Just as Bowdoin’s mission emphasizes the formation of complete individuals who can navigate a world in flux, this initiative will empower students and faculty to critically examine, thoughtfully utilize, and ethically shape AI’s trajectory.”

According to Bowdoin, the initiative’s first priorities include hiring 10 new faculty members across a range of disciplines, supporting current faculty who “want to incorporate and interrogate AI in their teaching, research, and artistic work,” and launching workshops and symposia about the “uses of AI and the changes and challenges it will bring.” 

“Bowdoin is ideally positioned to meet the challenges and opportunities of AI,” opined President Safa Zaki in her own statement. “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.”

“As AI becomes smarter than humans, we are going to need some deep thinking to keep us flourishing,” Hastings added, per Variety. This particular brand of doomerism about AI overtaking human intelligence is perhaps not what you want to hear from someone associated with the institution you pay a lot of money to help expand your own brain, but at least the college still claims to value deep (human) thinking.