Humanities Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most powerful technologies of our time and questions about its ethical, legal, and societal implications are fundamentally rooted in such humanities fields as ethics, law, history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, media studies, and cultural studies.

NEH’s founding legislation tasks the agency with making the American people “masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.” Accordingly, in 2023, NEH launched Humanities Perspectives on AI. This program encompasses several funding opportunities to support projects that bring humanities insights into exploration of the challenges and opportunities AI presents for civic and social life. NEH is particularly interested in projects that explore the impacts of AI-related technologies on truth, trust, and democracy; safety and security; and privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.

Humanities Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence supports AI-related humanities projects through the following funding opportunities:

Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence
This NEH grant program provides up to $750,000 to universities and independent research organizations to support the creation of humanities research centers focusing on the ethical, legal, or societal implications of artificial intelligence.
Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities
This NEH funding opportunity supports individuals and teams of scholars engaged in research that examines technology and its relationship to society through the lens of the humanities, with a focus on the dangers and/or opportunities presented by technology.
Collaborative Research
This NEH funding opportunity advances humanistic knowledge by supporting teams of scholars working on a joint endeavor. Eligible projects include planning of an international AI research project or scholarly convening about AI.
Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities
This NEH grant program supports national or regional training programs for scholars, humanities professionals, and advanced graduate students to broaden and extend their knowledge of digital humanities. Eligible projects include professional development programs on the latest research related to humanistic AI.
Independent scholars or those affiliated with an institution may apply for support to research and write about topics in AI and the humanities through NEH’s Fellowships, Awards for Faculty at HBCUs, HSIs, and TCUs, Summer Stipends, or Public Scholars funding opportunities.

Since its launch, NEH has awarded over $6 million in funding to support individual scholars and teams of researchers on range of AI-related humanities projects. Examples include:

NEH awarded a total of $2.72 million to Bard College, North Carolina State University, the University of Oklahoma, Norman, the University of California, Davis, and the University of Richmond to establish the first AI research centers and pilot collaborative research projects that examine AI through a multidisciplinary humanities lens.
NEH awarded $25,000 to researchers at Eastern Connecticut State University to develop an AI-related humanities curriculum across liberal arts colleges.
NEH awarded $216,218 to researchers at the University of Kansas to conduct a weeklong institute to teach AI literacy to secondary school, community college, and college-level humanities instructors.
NEH awarded $200,000 to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania to work as part of a multinational team studying the role of large corporations in developing, deploying, and regulating AI in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
NEH has awarded over $1.9 million through its Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities program to a range of research projects.

For information on NEH’s policy related to AI usage, please read the National Endowment for the Humanities AI usage notice.