Campbell Brown has dedicated her career to pursuing accurate information, initially as a prominent TV journalist and later as Facebook’s first—and only—dedicated news leader. Today, as she watches AI transform how people access and absorb information, she fears history may be on the verge of repeating itself. This time, she’s taking matters into her own hands instead of waiting for others to solve the problem. Her startup, Forum AI — which she recently spoke about with TechCrunch’s Tim Fernholz at a StrictlyVC event in San Francisco — assesses how foundation models handle what she describes as “high-stakes topics” such as geopolitics, mental health, finance, and hiring: areas where “there are no clear yes-or-no answers, where it’s murky and nuanced and complex.” The concept involves identifying the world’s top experts, having them design rigorous benchmarks, and then training AI judges to assess models at scale. For its geopolitics initiatives at Forum AI, Brown has brought on Niall Ferguson, Fareed Zakaria, former Secretary of State Tony Blinken, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Anne Neuberger, who oversaw cybersecurity during the Obama administration. The objective is to achieve around 90% agreement between AI judges and human experts—a benchmark that Forum AI has already attained, according to her. Brown traces the origins of Forum AI, which was established 17 months ago in New York, back to one particular moment. She recalled, “I was working at Meta when ChatGPT first launched publicly, and it didn’t take long for me to see that this would become the main channel through which all information would flow.” And it isn’t very good.
Who decides what AI tells you? Campbell Brown, once Meta’s news chief, has thoughts
- by stefan