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MIT announces $1 billion campus focused on AI advancement

Consensual computation

MIT announces $1 billion campus focused on AI advancement

The new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, eponymously named after the Blackstone CEO who gave a $350 million foundational grant to launch the endeavor, will be getting its own new headquarters building on the MIT campus. Pictured: The William Barton Rogers Building (Courtesy MIT)

The encroach of self-driving cars, acrobatic terminators, and decades of media hysterics over the destructive potential of artificial intelligence (AI) have brought questions of robot ethics into the public consciousness. Now, MIT has leaped into the fray and will tackle those issues head-on with the announcement of a new school devoted solely to the study of the opportunities and challenges that the advancement of AI will bring.

The new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, eponymously named after the Blackstone CEO who gave a $350 million foundational grant to launch the endeavor, will be getting its own new headquarters building on the MIT campus. While a large gift, the final cost of establishing the new school has been estimated at a whopping $1 billion, and MIT has reportedly already raised another $300 million for the initiative and is actively fundraising to close the gap.

“As computing reshapes our world, MIT intends to help make sure it does so for the good of all,” wrote MIT president L. Rafael Reif in the announcement. “In keeping with the scope of this challenge, we are reshaping MIT.

“The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing will constitute both a global center for computing research and education, and an intellectual foundry for powerful new AI tools. Just as important, the College will equip students and researchers in any discipline to use computing and AI to advance their disciplines and vice-versa, as well as to think critically about the human impact of their work.”

As Reif told the New York Times, the goal is to “un-silo” previously self-contained academic disciplines and create a center where biologists, physicists, historians, and any other discipline can research the integration of AI and data science into their field. Rather than offering a standard double-major, the new school will instead integrate computer science into the core of every course offered there. The college will also host forums and advance policy recommendations on the developing field of AI ethics.

The Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing is set to open in September 2019, and the new building is expected to be complete in 2022. No architect has been announced yet; AN will update this article when more information is available.

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