Lilly Endowment, Inc. donates to Institute for Ethics and Common Good

The Lilly Endowment recently awarded the University of Notre Dame a 539,000 dollar grant for its “Faith-Based Frameworks in AI Ethics” project. The award was announced on October 10 by the recently founded Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG), which leads the AI research project. 

The Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private philanthropic foundation based in Indianapolis that works for the “promotion and support of religious, educational or charitable purposes.” According to its website, the Endowment gives grants to charitable organizations and aims to “deepen and enrich the religious lives of Christians in the United States.”

The 2024 grant is not the first time Notre Dame has received funding from the Lilly Endowment.

In June 2023, Notre Dame received a 1,250,000 dollar grant from the Lilly Endowment under the organization’s “Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative,” which supports the “pivotal role parents play in the religious lives of their children.” Other recipients of grants from the Endowment in the past include Adult and Child Health and Advocates for Children and Families, Inc.

The Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG) is part of Notre Dame’s Ethics Initiative, outlined in the 2033 Strategic Framework released last year by the university. The ECG aims to make Notre Dame a “premier global destination for the study of ethics.” 

The ECG’s Faith-Based Frameworks for AI Ethics project is a one-year program that seeks to “engage and build a network of leaders in higher education, technology, and a diverse array of faith-based communities focused on developing faith-based ethical frameworks and applying them to emerging debates around artificial general intelligence (AGI).” 

Meghan Sullivan, director of the ECG and professor of philosophy, told Notre Dame News, “This project will encourage broader dialogue about the role that concepts such as dignity, embodiment, love, transcendence and being created in the image of God should play in how we understand and use this technology.”

Sullivan continued, “These concepts—at the bedrock of many faith-based traditions—are vital for how we advance the common good in the era of AGI.”

David Go, vice president and assistant provost for academic strategy, told Notre Dame News that the Lilly grant will allow the ECG to “convene a diverse group of technology experts, scholars and religious leaders for important conversations about artificial general intelligence and all the ways it could impact our society.” Go continued, “Notre Dame has a special obligation to address the most significant ethical questions of the day … and this conference will enable our University-wide Ethics Initiative to engage others in doing just that.”

One program under the ECG, the Jenkins Center for Virtue Ethics, caused some controversy at Notre Dame last year due to its apparent similarity to the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture (dCEC). David O’Connor, professor of philosophy, told the Rover at the time that virtue ethics “shifts the center of gravity from a specifically Catholic initiative in the dCEC to a specifically neutral paradigm within the academic study of philosophy and, indeed, within the philosophy department.” 

Although the two centers have similar missions, the dCEC focuses on engaging with specifically Catholic culture through research. While the ECG is “inspired” by Catholic tradition, it seeks to promote “broad ethical inquiry,” a wider scope of ethics research. 

The dCEC has also given presentations in AI research. This fall, the center hosted a talk by Father Michael Baggot titled “AI, Transhumanism, and Human Flourishing.” Baggot explained the benefits and costs of AI in the field of medicine, and the dangers of artificial intimacy. 

David Keppel, a freshman, told the Rover, “I felt encouraged that the Catholic Church is putting time and thought into considering these seemingly ‘sci-fi’ questions, because it is becoming glaringly apparent that the day may come when we must confront a digital reality.”

Last year, after the dCEC’s fall conference, Daniel Schermerhorn, a computer engineering major, talked to the Rover after hearing the lectures on AI, “Persons: Created, Artificial, and Natural” and “Personhood, Relationality, and Responsibility: Jewish Philosophers on Contemporary Technology.”

Schermerhorn told the Rover, “As a Catholic software engineer, I have a responsibility to respond to the unethical usage of advanced AI. … I hope to further my understanding of this issue in order to become a persuasive voice for the promotion of Catholic morality in the software industry.”

The ECG did not respond to the Rover’s request for comment. The dCEC declined to comment on the Lilly Endowment grant for AI research. 

Piper Burrows is a freshman political science major. She is obsessed with her mini goldendoodle, Buster. Send cute dog pics to pburrows@nd.edu. 

Photo Credit: @NDEthics on X

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