AN INDISPENSABLE ROLE FOR THE LIBERAL ARTS
Dartmouth professors and researchers assert that if computational tools such as AI and machine learning are to serve—rather than confound and complicate—human societies and relationships, Dartmouth and other leading liberal arts institutions must remain fully engaged with these rapidly expanding technologies. AI, ML, large language models, and as yet undiscovered tools are not ends unto themselves, and their astonishing capabilities should never be justified solely by the astronomical profits they generate.
To ensure Dartmouth remains a leader in the use of computation technologies for societal good, the College created the Susan and James Wright Center for the Study of Computation and Just Communities in 2020. A key objective of the Wright Center is to expose the double-edged sword of computational advances in the public and governmental sphere using tools and methods such as AI, ML, data analytics, and computer simulations. Topics on the Wright Center's agenda include surveillance and safety, free speech and misinformation, as well as image creation and manipulation.
At the frontier where AI and liberal arts curricula intersect, Dartmouth students and faculty are illuminating just how essential the liberal arts are to the development of responsible and productive AI. Speaking to HigherEdDive, Dartmouth Professor of History Cecilia Gaposchkin noted that human reasoning related to ethics, morality, and human dignity is instinctive. "To outsource the higher-level orders [of thinking] to an object that doesn't have that ethical grounding trained by human reason," she said, "is a dead end."
Dartmouth alum Cal Newport '04—a Montgomery Fellow, visiting faculty member, and full professor at Georgetown University—shares a similar perspective. During a recent talk at Dartmouth's Filene Auditorium, Newport explained that AI systems are unable to reflect and change, and they will not accidentally become self-aware. As a result, he says, "The most likely future is not that these productivity-enhanced language models are going to eliminate massive numbers of jobs so much as they will change them." Not surprisingly, Dartmouth students are equipping themselves to lead that change. Nearly three quarters of all undergraduates take at least one computer science or engineering class, and the number of students majoring in computer science has quadrupled during the last decade.
THE DARTMOUTH AI DIVIDEND
Dartmouth's robust engagement with computational technologies is also yielding dividends on the entrepreneurial front. In 2024 alone, 10 recent Dartmouth alums and current undergraduate tech founders were accepted into Y Combinator, a renowned Silicon Valley startup accelerator with a 3% acceptance rate. All 10 have ties to Dartmouth's Digital Applied Learning and Innovation Lab (DALI) or the Department of Computer Science. For DALI Director Tim Tregubov, those successes demonstrate how Dartmouth's comprehensive integration of technology, entrepreneurship, and the liberal arts is paying off for both students and society. "[We] have students who are starting up their own things to try to change the world," he said. "It's awesome."
For Felix Davis '26, harnessing the power of AI to help others is a matter of life and death. He was studying medicine in his native Ghana when the woman who raised him, Mary Dagadu, died of breast cancer. She might have been saved with better access to diagnostics and care. Soon after her death, Davis left Ghana for Dartmouth and redirected his studies from medicine to computer science and economics with the explicit goal of creating a new model for low-cost, modular microclinics.
With support from Dartmouth's John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding and a $3,000 Founder Grant from the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, Davis' new venture—dubbed Mary Global Health—has already completed several hundred basic health screenings in underserved areas of Ghana. The microclinics combine portable medical devices and AI-powered software to facilitate remote diagnosis and treatment, and the Mary Global Health team uses the encounters to improve its model. "Any AI product is only as good as the diversity of data on which it is trained," says Davis. "We want to bring the most underprivileged and under-resourced people into the conversation right from the onset."
ENGAGING WITH THE TECHNOLOGY ARMS RACE
Assistant Professor of Quantitative Social Science Herbert Chang '18 has always considered the merging of liberal arts and computational science an imperative. A native of Taiwan, Chang well understands how tightly intertwined technology and politics have become in the AI era. "Because of its contentious history with China," he says, "Taiwan receives a ton of misinformation. At the same time, it boasts a high freedom-of-speech index. That makes it a particularly interesting space to study how technology and democratic values come together."
With two groundbreaking research projects during the 2024 U.S. election cycle, Chang and teams of Dartmouth undergraduates and graduate students performed large-scale systematic analyses of the influence of social media AI on political discourse. "My students are incredibly talented and come from diverse backgrounds—from pre-med to computer science to QSS," says Chang. "They are also perfect collaborators. As frequent users of social media, they have incredible insight into how these platforms work and their strategies for generating visibility." He stresses that although AI can be used to generate fake content or misinformation, it also can be used as a form of civic engagement that helps identify malicious trends. "It's a technological arms race I'm excited to continue navigating with my students."
Given the extent of computational engagement all across the campus, it's clearly a commitment that will continue to be prized by the entire Dartmouth community.
