Reed Netflix Hastings gives Bowdoin for the AI ​​program

The Netflix co -founder, Reed Hastings, wants more researchers and students to ask deep questions about artificial intelligence and their potential to overturn human norms.

To that end, Mr. Hastings has donated $ 50 million to Bowdoin College, his Alma Mater, to create a research initiative on “ai and Humanity”, the greatest gift for the liberal Arts College in Maine since its foundation in 1794, the school announced on Monday.

The objective of the program, said Mr. Hastings and school officials, is to make Bowdoin a MECA to study the risks and consequences of ai, the initiative also aims to help prepare students to deal with emerging technologies that can manufacture human texts and even produce formulas for possible new drug compounds.

The idea of ​​the program arose from discussions in recent months between Mr. Hastings and Bowdoin's president, Safa R. ZakiA cognitive scientist said. Bowdoin plans to use part of the money to hire 10 members of the Faculty and support teachers “who wish to incorporate and interrogate the ai” in their teaching and research.

In an interview, Mr. Hastings said it was urgent that more researchers address such questions due to the speed of ai advances and significant interruptions that systems could lead to human efforts such as work and relationships.

“We are going to fight for the survival of humanity and the flowering of humanity,” said Hastings. He compared ai with social networks, noting that social networks had grown so fast that few people initially understood the changes they could contribute to human interactions and behavior.

“The change of ai, I think, will be much larger than the change of social networks,” Hastings added. “Therefore, it is important to start early before the problems overwhelm.”

Dr. Zaki said she expected the members of the Faculty of Bowdoin and the students to study fundamental questions about ai and produce ethical frameworks for use.

“What does it mean to have a technology that consumes so much power? What does it mean to have a technology that can expand inequalities in society?” Dr. Zaki asked. “We have a moral imperative, as educators, to assume this, to confront the ai“

Hundreds of millions of people have started using ai for tasks such as finding information, producing emails and generating computer code. The developers of such tools say that the even more powerful ai systems are ready to radically alter daily life.

Some leading leaders of Silicon Valley have promoted pink visions of a future driven by ai.

The new initiative in Bowdoin, where Mr. Hastings received a degree in 1983, is aimed at studying more specifically how ai could alter society, for better or worse. Hastings said he expected the new program to also help ensure that the development of technology would serve and benefit people.

“I am an extreme technology and I see most of human progress as the progress of technology on one side and moral ethical systems on the other side,” he said. “Technological progress advances very well. Our moral-tica system improvements need some reinforcement.”