Eric and Wendy Schmidt commit $15.3 million to Yale for AI research
December 17, 2021
The Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University has announced a $15.3 million gift from Eric and Wendy Schmidt to launch the Schmidt Program on Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technologies, and National Power.
A new initiative of International Security Studies, the program will examine how advances in artificial intelligence have the potential to alter the fundamental building blocks of world order. The multidisciplinary program will foster research and teaching across the disciplines of computer science, data science, economics, engineering, history, international relations, law, philosophy, physics, and political science and offer a yearlong flagship course on “Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technologies, and National Power,” which will be team-taught by faculty from across the university to bridge the divide among global affairs, law, social science, and STEM students who are studying AI from different vantage points.
In addition, the program will bring prominent technologists to campus as Schmidt Program Senior Fellows; offer postdoctoral fellowships to Schmidt Visiting Scholars; support collaborative research and student internships; and offer cyber- and AI-focused lectures, symposia, workshops, and conferences to further the dialogue around emerging technologies and security studies.
“AI is too powerful and too important for us to ignore the fundamental questions that it poses for our society; it is imperative that our global leaders, our universities, and society as a whole begin to find ways to partner with and better understand AI’s potential if we are to shape its impact on the course of human history,” said Eric Schmidt, who served as Google’s CEO and chair from 2001 to 2011, as executive chair from 2011 to 2018, and as technical advisor from 2018 to 2020. “Establishing the Schmidt Program at Yale is a first step toward engaging in a multidisciplinary dialogue that examines the complexities of AI and begins to determine what society’s rules and limitations will be for these powerful systems and tools.”
"Jackson Institute establishes Schmidt Program on Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technologies, and National Power." Yale University press release 12/08/2021.
(Photo credit: Ben Gibbs/Yale University)
Source: PND
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