by Angela Guess

A recent press release reports, “As the ethical and policy issues surrounding artificial intelligence and other computing technologies take center stage, global law firm K&L Gates LLP has made a gift to help ensure Carnegie Mellon University’s leadership in this emerging field. The $10 million gift will establish the K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies. The funds will support new faculty chairs as well as three new Presidential Fellowships for doctoral students; a biennial conference; the K&L Gates Presidential Scholarship Endowed Fund to recognize undergraduate students’ outstanding achievements and potential for further excellence; and an annual K&L Gates Prize to be awarded to a graduating CMU senior. ‘We are deeply grateful to K&L Gates for this generous support,’ said Carnegie Mellon President Subra Suresh. ‘It is not just technology that will determine how this century unfolds. Our future will also be influenced strongly by how humans interact with technology, how we foresee and respond to the unintended consequences of our work, and how we ensure that technology is used to benefit humanity, individually and as a society’.”

The release goes on, “CMU is internationally renowned as a global research university that excels in the fields of artificial intelligence, performing arts, brain science, technology-enhanced learning, cybersecurity and robotics, among others. The university has been at the epicenter of artificial intelligence (AI) since the discipline was created in the 1950s and CMU visionaries Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon pioneered AI and cognitive science. Their quest to make machines think not only led to new insights about cognition, language and vision but opened the door to a novel and powerful approach to computing that is now shaping our world.”

Read more at CMU.edu.

Photo credit: Carnegie Mellon University