Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has donated $50 million to Bowdoin College to fund artificial intelligence initiatives, the Maine-based school announced Monday.
“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 statement.
Hastings, 64, graduated from Bowdoin with a degree in mathematics in 1983. He then earned a master’s degree in artificial intelligence in 1988 at Stanford University.
The New York Times reports the donation is the biggest gift the school has received since it was founded in 1794.
The money will help hire 10 new faculty members and support a range of AI learning investments, including developing and incorporating new curricula, hosting events, and running workshops on artificial intelligence and how it will affect “the future of humanity.”
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Bowdoin President Safa Zaki said that as AI advances, it will be important to ask questions like what we “value in human cognition” and what we “want our AI systems to do — or not do — in service to humanity.”
Hastings warned that the time to start asking these questions is now.
“We’re going to be fighting for the survival of humanity and the flourishing of humanity,” Hastings told the New York Times.
“The AI change, I think, will be much bigger than the social networking change,” Hastings added. “So it’s important to get started early before we’re overwhelmed by the problems.”
Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997 and spent 25 years as CEO. He is still at the company, serving as executive chairman, and has a net worth of around $6.61 billion, per Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
