Dartmouth hosts AI at 70 conference in Hanover

Dartmouth College is hosting a three-day artificial intelligence conference in Hanover, N.H., that opened Thursday. The event, titled AI at 70, commemorates the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project, where the term artificial intelligence was first coined.

Peter Chin, a Dartmouth engineering professor, stated the college wanted to mark the historical event. He noted that as the technology advances quickly, many people are asking where human judgment fits in. The 1956 project gathered experts to explore whether machines could solve problems typically associated with the human mind.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a 1988 Dartmouth graduate, served as one of the guest speakers. She argued that more regulation is needed domestically and called for a worldwide AI summit because all of humanity has a stake in the technology. Gillibrand said it was a mistake that Congress did not work to regulate Web 2 two decades ago.

Gillibrand emphasized that the technology lacks certain human traits. She stated that AI does not have empathy, does not have guilt, and does not feel badly. Her comments aligned with the conference’s central question regarding what aspects of humanity must remain distinct from machine processing.

Students participating in the conference are contributing specific research ideas. Dhruv Gupta, a freshman, is working with Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab Artificial Intelligence initiatives. He is focused on identifying core values among the world’s five major religions that could be incorporated into AI programming. Gupta described those values as the constitutional ground for artificial intelligence.

Chin expressed hope that the rapid progress in the field will not obscure the value of each human being. He described each person as precious in the context of the expanding technology. The gathering brings together faculty, students, and public figures to discuss these practical and philosophical issues over the course of three days.

The conference is scheduled to conclude on Saturday. The final day will feature an all-day hackathon involving students. This closing event follows two days of discussions on the history, regulation, and ethical foundations of artificial intelligence.