Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Lee Gardner notes that MIT is making a $1 billion investment in furthering the study of computation and AI. “The institute’s project will support the search for solutions to two other daunting challenges,” Gardner explains, “how to handle the ethical and philosophical implications of AI for the societies it will transform, and how to break down institutional silos in academe.”
Science reporter Jeffrey Mervis notes that the $350 million gift from Stephen Schwarzman, which will help establish a new college of computing at MIT, will enable the Institute to hire 50 new faculty members. Provost Martin Schmidt notes that the college will be instrumental in “linking computation to all disciplines on campus.”
Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed reports that MIT has announced a $1 billion plan to create a college of computing. The college, which will be named for Stephen Schwarzman, will also “promote teaching and research on computing and artificial intelligence.”
MIT’s new college of computing will teach students how to apply computer science and artificial intelligence in their specific field of study, writes Dave Gershgorn for Quartz. Gershgorn notes that researchers studying the impact of AI on society “have consistently suggested the expansion of interdisciplinary education, on the grounds that computer scientists can sometimes overlook the nuances of other fields.”
With the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, MIT is looking to educate the next generation of people working in the field of AI and computer science, writes James Vincent for The Verge. Vincent explains that the college is also aimed at investigating the ethics involved with the fields of computing and AI, positioning “the college as an ethically minded enterprise.”
In an article for TechCrunch, Danny Crichton calls the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing a “doubling down on the future of computer science.” Crichton writes that “the objective of the new school will be to ensure that all MIT students become familiar with the field regardless of their chosen profession.”
Boston Globe reporter Andy Rosen writes that MIT is establishing a college of computing as part of an effort to examine the impact computer science and AI is having on all disciplines. “We have to move much faster educating the next generation for the new economy,” explains President L. Rafael Reif. “The way to do that is to come up with integrated curriculum.”
Financial Times reporter Clive Cookson writes that MIT is establishing a college of computing to help students and researchers use computing and AI to advance their work. President L. Rafael Reif explains that the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing “will constitute both a global centre for computing research and education, and an intellectual foundry for powerful new AI tools.”
The New York Times writes about the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, calling MIT’s move “a particularly ambitious step.” President Reif says the College will “educate the bilinguals of the future,” people in fields like biology, chemistry, politics, history, and linguistics who are also skilled in the techniques of modern computing that can be applied to them.
President Reif sat down with GeekWire’s Todd Bishop, as part of a Seattle trip to talk with alumni about MIT’s plans for the future of education, research, and innovation. In talking about the work of the future, Reif tells Bishop, “[T]here will be work, it just will look very different from today. And we need to prepare for that transition.”
As noted by the Associated Press, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be joining MIT as an innovation fellow beginning this Spring, where he will advise the recently launched MIT Intelligence Quest.