AI Researchers Convene at Dartmouth

The original 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, which spanned about eight weeks, was organized by John McCarthy, then a young mathematics professor at the college, along with Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon. It was in McCarthy's 1955 proposal for this event that the term "artificial intelligence" was first coined to distinguish the new field from existing areas like cybernetics. The foundational goal of the 1956 workshop was to explore the conjecture that "every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it." Researchers at the event delved into topics that remain central to AI today, including language processing, neural nets, and machine self-improvement. Decades later, the conversation has shifted. The recent conference, "The Dartmouth Conference, Revisited," moved beyond the initial question of creating intelligent machines to address the urgent need for responsible innovation. The focus is now on how AI can augment human judgment and creativity, and what role higher education should play in cultivating human capabilities in the age of AI. This contemporary dialogue aims to produce actionable guidance and published frameworks for centering ethical responsibility as AI capabilities expand. This initiative is spearheaded by Dartmouth's Faculty Leadership Group on AI, which is tasked with developing an evidence-based strategy for how AI can accelerate the university's mission while safeguarding its values. In a significant move to integrate these principles into practice, Dartmouth has announced a partnership with Anthropic and Amazon Web Services (AWS). This collaboration will provide campus-wide access to the AI model Claude, with the goal of exploring how the technology can be thoughtfully integrated into teaching and research across all disciplines, from the sciences to the creative arts.