Students can now access funding through the Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity. Eric Chown, chair of the initiative’s advisory committee and professor of Digital and Computational Studies, announced the new Student AI Grants and Hastings Summer Fellows opportunities in an email to students on Wednesday.

The Student AI grants will be awarded in amounts up to $1,000 and are designed to support students engaging with artificial intelligence (AI). Priority will be given to requests for supplemental funding for honors projects or independent studies, though a range of opportunities and projects can be funded.

Students can apply for an AI grant on a rolling basis through an application that will be reviewed by a committee approximately every two weeks. In an email to the Orient, Chown outlined how the committee will evaluate applications.

“We’ll look at how projects fit into the priorities of the initiative, especially Reed Hastings’ quote that it would ‘advance Bowdoin’s mission of cultivating wisdom for the common good.’ We’ll also look at students’ motivation and interests, what their faculty recommenders have to say and the viability of what they are proposing,” Chown wrote.

Additionally, students interested in exploring multiple AI projects during the summer can apply for the Hastings Summer Fellow position. Like Bowdoin summer research fellows, Hastings Summer Fellows will receive $615 per week and campus housing. Students will also be paired with a member of the Hastings Initiative to support their in-depth exploration of AI topics. According to Chown, the initiative anticipates funding four to six summer fellows this year, depending on the amount of applications received.

Until now, only faculty have been able to access Hastings funding directly for AI research projects. Members of the advisory committee have been working to create more opportunities for student engagement with the initiative. In his email to the Orient, Chown stressed the importance of funding for student AI projects.

“We’re really excited to be able to directly support Bowdoin students. I do really want to emphasize the grounding in the common good. AI is a technology that is probably more capable than any in history to do both harm and good,” Chown wrote. “We need to figure out how to get the good without so much of the harm that is already happening. Bowdoin students are the right people for that important job.”