Stony Brook University launching new artificial intelligence department

New York State is investing $1.4 million this year to help Stony Brook University launch a new interdisciplinary Department of Technology, AI and Society focused on the use of artificial intelligence, state and university officials said Friday.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday that Stony Brook and seven other SUNY institutions have received a total of $5 million from the 2024-25 budget to fund new AI programs aimed at fostering collaboration between departments, addressing ethical concerns and using data in a responsible way.

The funding is “an investment in our students to expand their knowledge about what the future will bring,” Hochul said in a statement. The other recipients are SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn and six upstate institutions.

Stony Brook will also receive an additional $1.8 million in each of the next two years to fund the AI-focused department, said Gordon Tepper, a spokesman for Hochul.

The funds will help “students from a wide range of disciplines to come together, explore new ideas and develop the skills that will lead to lifelong success,” SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. said in a statement.

Indeed, the newly popular technology is transforming workplaces. A survey released in March by McKinsey & Company found that 71% of respondents said organizations were using generative AI — that is, technology that generates new text, images or code — up from 33% in 2023.

At Stony Brook, the new AI-themed department is expected to open as soon as this fall, said Carl Lejuez, Stony Brook’s executive vice president and provost. The state funds will pay for new faculty, new technology, paid internships and graduate fellowships, among other AI-focused work, he said. Stony Brook and the University at Buffalo, another AI funding recipient, also plan to do faculty exchanges, he said.

The new department — an expansion of the Department of Technology and Society, founded in 1976 — will bring together all of Stony Brook’s colleges and schools, including STEM disciplines such as computer science and engineering, as well as medicine, psychology, political science and philosophy, said Andrew Singer, dean of the college of engineering and applied sciences.

Faculty and staff are working to shape the department’s undergraduate and graduate programs and its overall structure, Singer said. “I’m excited by the level of collaboration that we're seeing,” he said.

Stony Brook last fall launched its new AI Innovation Institute, which focuses on research, support and training, and it is “hiring very aggressively” in computer science, Lejuez said.

But, he said, “If we're not ensuring that we can say all of this made people's lives better and made society better, then we’ve failed.”

By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.