Craigslist’s Craig Newmark funding Common Sense Media AI project

Craig Newmark made his fortune with a website founded in 1995. This website served as an early online bulletin board and does not appear to have been updated in 20 years.

its website, craigslistis still cranking in and features apartment listings, active job boards, and items for sale. However, this private company’s value has long been surpassed by companies such as: airbnbLinkedIn and Facebook Marketplace, all facing Wall Street’s demands for growth and profits.

Mr. Newmark’s Internet company may be outdated, but his concerns about where the industry is headed most certainly are not. Since his debut in 2015, craig newmark philanthropythe entrepreneur has donated millions of dollars to various causes related to media and technology.

Most recently, his organization donated $3 million to fund new artificial intelligence and education. Initiative The nonprofit group Common Sense Media told CNBC this week.

“I tried to pay a little attention to what was going on, and everything surprised me,” Newmark said, referring to the current boom in generative AI and all the new intelligent chatbots.

Newmark, 70, spoke to CNBC while recovering from minor heart surgery in late August. Because of his heart ablation, Newmark had to lie on his back “in the wrong position all the time,” and “I woke up with severe back pain,” he said.

Newmark wanted to talk about hospital food more than surgery.

“Hospital pudding is really good,” he said. “And since my lunch was cold, I asked for more pudding containers.”

Mr. Newmark, who ran a business in San Francisco but now lives with his wife in New York, was already grappling with such existential questions when he decided to simplify his medical care, so he was worried about death by hospitalization. He said he didn’t think much about it. ended his life by donating much of his Craigslist wealth.

The Newmark Foundation has primarily focused on donating to organizations and causes related to journalism, combating misinformation, countering online harassment, cybersecurity issues, and supporting veterans and military families.

The rapid evolution of AI and its potential dangers have recently garnered Newmark’s attention and funding.

The goal of Common Sense’s AI project is to provide parents, educators, policymakers, and regulators with an AI rating system that allows them to evaluate whether certain tools, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are safe or unsafe for children. That’s it. Additionally, the nonprofit offers an online AI literacy course aimed at helping parents and educators teach children the basics of AI.

By the time companies started “modifying their search engines to use generative AI,” the full scope of AI’s capabilities and potential for social harm became clearer to Newmark.

“We realized that if search engines were using unreliable sources, or if those sources were lying to people, that would raise huge ethical issues. Even if you’re a news source, you don’t want to knowingly give out information that’s a lie,” Newmark said.

Newmark worries that bad actors will be able to use generative AI to more easily amplify and spread disinformation. At the same time, he said he is concerned that tech companies, especially social media, “are no longer even trying to weed out what they know is fraud.”

like a technology company meta, Amazon and He said he would not give it.

Meanwhile, Newmark said AI could have the same profound impact on society as the internet and the printing press before it. It is an area in which he has significant expertise. Craigslist was a huge disruptor of newspapers and their classified ads sections, and at the same time, it was a site of great interest. criminal and con man.

Few people predicted the “abuse” of the Internet. The internet has allowed thugs to “most often lie to people in large numbers,” Newmark said.

“I think the profits you can make as a really good professional liar have increased significantly because the Internet is a big amplifier,” Newmark said. “This is everyone’s printing press, and you can use it as a printing press, whether your intentions are good or bad.”

Newmark said he became interested in language generation software like ChatGPT in the early 1970s, when “people started talking about language understanding and neural networks.” However, he said, “I didn’t really understand.”

Now this technology is here and is rapidly gaining popularity.

Newmark said he did not want to name the organizations he fears are creating the most social discontent through AI. Because he has been hurt by mentioning that particular organization before.

“In the past, when I pointed out major problems, I realized that I was no match for people who made a living by lying,” Newmark said. “So I give myself permission to be a chicken—”

Instead, he said, he is relying on “braver and wiser people” to draw public attention to these issues.

“Protecting children when it comes to AI is a big issue,” Newmark said of the donation to Common Sense Media. “I have no idea how to start, but I know where to put my money.”

Why is it common sense?

“A lot of organizations and politicians are talking about child protection,” Newmark said. “But I’m helping them because they’re real.”

Newmark acknowledged that topics around misinformation, journalism and content moderation have become more important. Polarization and politicization have increased recently. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claims that tech companies are unfairly censoring conservative speech and is investigating allegations of ties between the executive branch and some engineers and researchers. We have begun a “censorship investigation.”

In the field of journalism, Newmark’s most high-profile endeavor is the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. The program was renamed after his Newmark in 2018. made a donation to the school There was a $20 million donation, but he also gave in 2016 and 2017.

He also donated $20 million in financial aid in 2018. markupdescribes itself as a “nonprofit news organization that investigates how powerful institutions use technology to change society.” The project became controversial soon after its founding editor-in-chief, Julia Angwin, took over. she said so fired by email By Sue Gardner, Co-Founder and Executive Director.

Still, Newmark said that while the City University of New York School of Journalism and The Markup have both been successful, other efforts “haven’t been successful. We’re still trying to help before we have the tough conversations, so I’m We handle them carefully.”

He puts the success rate of his philanthropic efforts at “70 to 80 percent, which is good, but not 100.”

In terms of where he spends his time online, Newmark said he still posts on X, primarily to promote and highlight his work as a teacher. But he said the site is losing its effectiveness as it leans toward showing people posts recommended based on algorithms.

“As a social network, Twitter seems to be dead,” Newmark said, adding that he is experimenting with rivals like Bluesky, Mastodon and Mastodon. meta thread.

In particular, Newmark said he likes “kind of the spirit of Mastodon and Blue Sky,” likening it to the early days of the Internet, when it took a long time for websites to develop a loyal audience.

“Audience growth is very slow,” Newmark said. “Twitter and everything else is growing slowly, and other sites are growing slowly, but we’re still impatient and want to see network effects now.”

Cybersecurity is also a focus area for Numark. He pointed to recent $100 million commitments announced in March to a range of organizations working on cyber-related issues such as virus spread prevention. ransomware and Creating a method Enables technology and security companies to share threat information.

He said the total will likely exceed $100 million, as it has already “topped $80 million.”

In June, Newmark’s philanthropic arm also opened. pledged Mr. Newmark announced a $100 million donation to organizations that support veterans and military personnel, saying they are “sometimes forced to choose between decent housing and supporting their families.” Ta. He called the treatment of that community a “national security issue.”

“There’s no virtue in it,” Newmark said of his donations, noting that he didn’t spend the money on “yachts or fast cars.”

“It’s more satisfying to give presents,” Newmark said. “Again, that’s not pious or altruistic. It’s just what I was taught in Sunday school.”

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