Craigslist’s Craig Newmark funding Frequent Sense Media AI mission

Craig Newmark made his fortune off a web site, based in 1995, that served as an early on-line bulletin board and appears prefer it hasn’t been up to date in twenty years.

That web site, Craigslist, continues to be cranking alongside, that includes condominium listings, an energetic jobs board and gadgets on the market. However the privately held firm has lengthy been surpassed in worth by the likes of Airbnb, LinkedIn and Fb Market, which all face Wall Avenue’s calls for for progress and revenue.

Although Newmark’s web firm could also be outdated, his issues about the place the business is headed are most definitely not. For the reason that 2015 debut of Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the entrepreneur has donated many thousands and thousands of {dollars} to numerous causes involving media and know-how.

Most not too long ago, his group contributed $3 million to assist fund a brand new synthetic intelligence and training initiative from Frequent Sense Media, the nonprofit informed CNBC this week.

“Whereas I attempted to pay some consideration to what was happening, simply the whole lot caught me abruptly,” Newmark stated, referring to the present growth of generative AI and all the brand new and clever chatbots.

Newmark, 70, spoke to CNBC as he was recovering from a minor coronary heart process he went by in late August. The center ablation required Newmark to put on his again “the entire time within the flawed place” and he “wakened with loads of again ache,” he stated.

Greater than the surgical procedure, Newmark needed to speak in regards to the hospital meals.

“Hospital pudding is basically good,” he stated. “And since they served my lunch chilly, I requested them and obtained extra containers of pudding.”

Newmark, who ran his enterprise out of San Francisco however now lives along with his spouse in New York, stated the hospital keep did not trigger him to replicate a lot on mortality, as he’d already addressed such existential points when he determined to simplify his life by making a gift of a lot of his Craigslist riches.

Newmark’s basis has principally centered on donating to organizations and causes pertaining to journalism, combating misinformation, countering on-line harassment, cybersecurity points and supporting veterans and army households.

The fast evolution of AI and its potential hazards has not too long ago caught Newmark’s consideration, and his cash.

The aim of Frequent Sense’s AI mission is to offer an AI scores system for fogeys, educators, coverage makers and regulators to allow them to consider what makes sure instruments like OpenAI’s ChatGPT protected or unsafe for kids. Moreover, the nonprofit is providing on-line AI literacy programs supposed to assist dad and mom and educators train fundamental AI fundamentals to youngsters.

The total scope of AI’s capabilities and potential for societal hurt turned extra clear to Newmark by the point firms started “modifying search engines like google and yahoo to make use of generative AI.”

“I noticed that if a search engine was utilizing sources that weren’t dependable, if the sources had been about mendacity to individuals, that might create a giant, moral downside, and you actually do not need a information supply of any kind to knowingly lie,” Newmark stated.

Newmark is anxious that unhealthy actors will use generative AI to extra simply amplify and unfold disinformation. On the similar time, he is fearful that tech firms, notably in social media, “aren’t even attempting anymore to eliminate stuff they know is dishonest,” he stated.

Tech firms like Meta, Amazon and X (previously often called Twitter) not too long ago laid off quite a few trust-and-safety employees as a part of main cost-cutting initiatives, however have stated that the downsizing will not have an effect on the protection of their platforms.

In the meantime, AI has the potential to profoundly have an effect on society, just like the web and the printing press earlier than it, Newmark stated. That is an space the place he has notable experience. Craigslist was each vastly disruptive to newspapers and their labeled adverts sections, and has been a website that is attracted criminals and scammers.

Few individuals predicted the “unhealthy makes use of” of the web, which has allowed nefarious actors to “largely mislead individuals in giant numbers,” Newmark stated.

“I assume the earnings to be made in being a extremely good skilled liar, these earnings have vastly elevated as a result of the web is a giant amplifier,” Newmark stated. “It is everybody’s printing press, and also you get to make use of it as a printing press, whether or not your intentions are good or unhealthy.”

Newmark stated he turned fascinated with language-generating software program like ChatGPT within the early Seventies, “when individuals had been starting to speak about language understanding and neural networks.” Nevertheless, he says, “I did not actually perceive it.”

Now the know-how is right here and spreading quickly.

Newmark stated he does not wish to identify names relating to the organizations he fears are creating probably the most societal discontent by AI, as a result of he is beforehand been scarred for getting that particular.

“Prior to now once I’ve identified main issues, I’ve discovered the laborious approach that I am no match for somebody who lies for a residing,” Newmark stated. “So, I am permitting myself to be chickens—.”

Reasonably, he stated he depends on “people who find themselves each braver and smarter” to name public consideration to these issues.

“Defending children relating to AI is a giant concern,” Newmark stated, relating to his donation to Frequent Sense Media. “I do not know how I’d go about getting began, however I do know the place to place my cash the place my mouth is.”

Why Frequent Sense?

“Quite a lot of teams and politicians speak about defending children,” Newmark stated. “However these guys are the true deal, and so I am serving to them.”

Newmark acknowledged that the matters of misinformation, journalism and content material moderation have change into extra polarized and politicized of late. Home Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, alleged that tech firms unfairly censor conservative speech, and he is undertaken a “censorship investigation” to probe suspected ties between the chief department and sure technologists and researchers.

A number of lecturers beforehand informed CNBC that the politicized panorama has led to some organizations slicing again on funding analysis into combating misinformation for worry of being publicly criticized.  

“Some individuals are backing off, some individuals are getting braver. Once more, I am not very courageous,” Newmark stated. He highlighted the Knight Basis and Ford Basis as organizations which are “doing courageous issues.”

Inside journalism, Newmark’s most high-profile endeavor is the Metropolis College of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate Faculty in Journalism. This system was renamed in 2018 after Newmark endowed the college with a $20 million reward, although he made prior contributions in 2016 and 2017.

He additionally donated $20 million in 2018 to assist fund The Markup, which describes itself as a “nonprofit newsroom that investigates how highly effective establishments are utilizing know-how to vary our society.” That mission shortly turned controversial after founding editor-in-chief Julia Angwin stated she’d been fired over e mail by co-founder and govt director Sue Gardner.

Nonetheless, Newmark says each the CUNY journalism faculty and The Markup have been profitable, whereas different efforts “haven’t been profitable, and I am being discreet about them as a result of I am nonetheless attempting to assist earlier than I’ve a lot sterner talks.”

He pegs his philanthropy success price at “70 or 80%, which is sweet, but it surely’s not 100.”

By way of the place he spends his time on-line, Newmark stated he nonetheless posts on X, primarily to advertise and spotlight the work of lecturers. Nevertheless, he stated the positioning is dropping its effectiveness because it leans in the direction of exhibiting individuals algorithmically advisable posts.

“As a social community, Twitter does appear to be gone,” Newmark stated, including that he is attempting out rivals like Bluesky, Mastodon and Meta’s Threads.

Particularly, Newmark stated he likes “just like the spirit of Mastodon and Bluesky,” which he likened to the early days of the web when it took a very long time for web sites to construct devoted audiences.

“The viewers growth may be very gradual,” Newmark stated. “Twitter and the whole lot else grew slowly and the opposite websites are rising slowly, and but we’re impatient and we wish to see community results now.”

Cybersecurity is one other space of focus for Newmark. He pointed to a latest $100 million dedication introduced in March to a set of organizations engaged on cyber-related points, like combating the unfold of ransomware and creating strategies for tech and safety firms to share risk info.

He stated the whole quantity will in all probability exceed $100 million, as a result of he is already “damaged by $80 million.”

In June, Newmark’s philanthropy arm additionally pledged to donate $100 million to a number of organizations supporting veterans and army members, who “generally have to decide on between respectable housing or feeding their households,” Newmark stated. He known as the remedy of that neighborhood “a nationwide safety matter.”

“There’s nothing virtuous in that,” Newmark stated about his donations, noting that he does not spend his cash on “yachts or quick automobiles.”

“It is extra satisfying to offer it away,” Newmark stated. “Once more, that is not pious or altruistic. It is simply what I used to be taught in Sunday faculty.”

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