Reid Hoffman—Co-funded $27M Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative with Knight Foundation and Omidyar Network
Reid Hoffman personally committed $10 million to a $27 million fund created with the Knight Foundation and Omidyar Network to apply humanities and social sciences to AI development. The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative supported research at MIT Media Lab and Harvard Berkman Klein Center focused on ensuring AI serves the public interest.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Safety | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Human-Centered AI | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | +1.020 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.68)
Evidence (2 signals)
Hoffman endowed University of Toronto AI chair with C$2.45M gift
Reid Hoffman made a gift of C$2.45 million to the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information to establish a chair studying how AI will affect lives. It was the largest donation the faculty had ever received, and Hoffman also launched Hoffman-Yee Research Grants at Stanford HAI for interdisciplinary AI research.
Knight Foundation announced $27M AI ethics fund with Hoffman's $10M commitment
The Knight Foundation announced the creation of a $27 million fund for AI public interest research, with Reid Hoffman and Omidyar Network each committing $10 million and Knight Foundation committing $5 million. The fund supports the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative at MIT Media Lab and Harvard Berkman Klein Center.