In a recent news interview, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt called AI, in no uncertain terms, “the most powerful technology that will be invented in our lifetime.” It should come as no surprise that Schmidt, one of the most successful figures in technology, dedicates much of his current philanthropy to developing technologies in which artificial intelligence plays a central role.
We’ve been writing about Eric Schmidt’s hopes for AI and technology for several years. The Schmidts have been supporting AI research since 2024, when they founded Schmidt Sciences, which “combined the science-focused efforts of Eric and Wendy Schmidt.” The program I’m talking about here is an academic fellowship to advance AI research called AI2050, which IP’s Mike Scutari discussed in 2022. This program is scientifically funded in a unique way. In other words, ask any AI scholar to imagine the year 2050 and (optimistically) imagine some of the most useful AI-based solutions that could emerge by then. The nontraditional nature of the funding highlights Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s established pattern of supporting promising research and unproven but possibly risky research avenues.
The AI2050 program, supported by a five-year, $125 million commitment from the Schmidts, has provided funding for established and emerging AI scholars to advance their research. A few weeks ago, Schmidt Sciences named 25 AI scholars (5 established leaders in the field and 20 early in their careers) to the third and newest group of its AI2050 program.
The program will provide a total of $12 million to the entire group of scholars to advance their research. They work on different fields and projects. Some are likely targets for AI technology, such as drug discovery and particle physics, while others are perhaps more surprising, such as reducing infant mortality. Including previous fellows, AI2050 currently supports a total of 71 researchers from seven countries and dozens of institutions.
“There are 8 billion people living in the world, and we believe AI will be a transformative technology for those 8 billion people,” said Mark Greaves, executive director of the AI and Advanced Computing Institute at Schmidt Sciences. states. “Talent is not evenly distributed, and through the AI2050 program we can not only find the hot talent, but also develop problem-solving talent around the world.”
AI2050 researchers tackle “tough problems” in AI
The program’s funding and fellowship decisions are primarily guided by what the Schmidt AI team calls its “list of hard AI problems.” This is a set of common scientific and social concepts compiled by AI2050 co-chairs Eric Schmidt and James Manica. This list is subject to change as technology evolves, but includes scientific, technological, and social goals, and includes relatively obvious topics such as health and life sciences, as well as economic It also includes issues such as scarcity and abundance, and many more difficult questions about how to improve. The function of AI itself.
Previous AI2050 Senior Fellows include University of Cape Town researcher Kelly Chibale; Fei-Fei Li, co-founder of World Labs. Daniela Russ founded Liquid AI and pioneered the use of liquid neural networks. Liquid neural networks are smaller versions of AI neural networks that can continue to learn from stimuli after initial training.
Newly appointed 2024 AI2050 Senior Fellows include economist David Auter, co-director of MIT’s Shaping the Future of Work Initiative; He investigates how people interact with new AI tools and how AI will shape future jobs and incomes. Yejin Choi, an AI researcher at Stanford University, is developing a way to make AI reflect multiple human values. Carla Gomez, director of the Computational Sustainability Institute at Cornell University, addresses the limits of AI in scientific discovery.
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No one is eligible to apply for the AI2050 Fellowship. Candidates are nominated by a group of nearly 300 AI experts from around the world. “We are driven by people,” Greaves said. “The first bar is always scientific excellence, and then from that pool you see how they are solving difficult problems.”
AI is one of the core focuses of Schmidt Science, the science and technology-oriented philanthropic organization founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt about a year ago, and is the focus of many of the couple’s science and technology endeavors. It takes on most of the attention. The scientific teams that operated within Schmidt Futures have transitioned to the new Schmidt Sciences organization.
Schmidt Sciences said its specific goal is to help researchers use technology to pursue early-stage, high-risk hypotheses across a variety of fields, from basic science to pressing planetary issues. are. Also included in the organization’s DNA is support for the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of science.
In addition to AI and advanced computing, Schmidt Sciences’ areas of focus include astrophysics and space, biological sciences, climate, and scientific systems. (The Schmidt family’s long-standing organizations, including Schmidt Futures and the Schmidt Family Foundation, continue to work to support a variety of causes.)
Through this work, Schmidt Sciences, like many philanthropic organizations entering the still-challenged field of AI, is committed to ensuring that AI is used safely and ethically and is accessible to people everywhere. It emphasizes the emphasis on how to distribute technology to make it possible. And realize the benefits. This emphasis applies not only to the AI2050 program but also to other AI-focused initiatives, such as Schmidt Sciences’ new Humanities and AI Virtual Institute. This illustrates Schmidt philanthropy’s broad and optimistic conception of how technology can help.
“AI is now at a scale where philosophical questions and philosophical analyzes can eventually be relevant to the systems that computer scientists build,” Greaves said. “Modern AI has shown itself to be incredibly fluent in language and understand how language works,” he continued. “The interaction between AI computer science and the humanities provides a natural way to understand the types of materials, such as language, art, and media, that humanities scholars work with; therefore, AI advances humanities scholarship. It can be an amazing new tool for
