Bowdoin College has received a $50 million gift from Reed Hastings, 1983 alumnus, Netflix cofounder and Powder Mountain CEO, to create the Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity.
The gift, the largest in the college’s 231-year history, will be used largely to support teaching and research related to artificial intelligence. It will pay for 10 new faculty members, expand faculty-led research and curriculum offerings, and drive campuswide conversations about the benefits and challenges of AI.
“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,” Hastings said in a press release. “As AI becomes smarter than humans, we are going to need some deep thinking to keep us flourishing.”
Hastings credited a late Bowdoin mathematics professor, Steve Fisk, for first encouraging him to study AI. “Steve was about forty years too early, but his perspective was life-changing for me,” Hastings said.
“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,” Bowdoin president Safa Zaki said in a statement.