Eric Schmidt was the ex-CEO of GoogleIs. planning to invest $125 millionHis philanthropic venture Schmidt Futures enables him to invest in artificial intelligence research.

This funding will be provided through the AI2050 initiative, which aims to help academics who are working on AI “hard problems”.

Schmidt declared Wednesday in a statement that “AI will make us rethink what is it to be human.” As we plan for a future with AI we must prepare ourselves for unintended consequences.

Schmidt was the first to warn of AI’s dangers.

He said, “Lessons such as these are a reminder to us all that we must be ready for the future.”

“Artificial Intelligence can make a significant impact in society. However, it is crucial that we ensure the AI we create has our human needs at its core.” 

Schmidt and James Manyika (Google’s new chief of technology and society) will co-chair the AI2050 Initiative.

Over the next five-years, individual academics will be eligible for payouts. Rediet and Stuart Russell from Berkeley were the first recipients of grants. Abebe studies AI as a tool to measure and alleviate socioeconomic inequality. Russell is studying probabilistic programming in order to increase AI’s readability, provable safety, performance, and interpretability.  

CNBC interviewed Jon Crowcroft from Cambridge University who said the money should be used for researchers to improve AI’s sustainability. Crowcroft added that too many tech titans have their eyes on large AI models that can prove very expensive to train.

Crowcroft indicated that he also wants to see greater investment in AI systems’ interpretability. Crowcroft stated that humans are not able to understand why so many advanced AIs today make such complex decisions.

Schmidt presided over the U.S. National Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which ran from 2018 through 2021. The commission concluded that last March the U.S. is drastically underpreparedThe age of AI.

On a total of 756 pages reportThe warning came out of China, which warned it that China would soon be the global “AI superpower”, and pointed to serious military implications.

AI researchers told CNBC last MarchIt’s not necessary to impose strict rules on the development of the technology at this point, since the technology is still very young and bureaucracy will slow down the progress.