Mission Statement
The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism supports journalism that helps society navigate the emergence of increasingly advanced AI.
Journalism will play a crucial role in society’s transition to a world with more powerful AI. As technology advances, Tarbell is committed to supporting independent journalism that demystifies the debates around this technology, holds the companies and people building it to account, and fosters the discourse necessary to chart a path that benefits society.
In recent years, the pace of AI progress has accelerated. Large language models have gone from barely being able to string a sentence together to writing entire research papers; from struggling to count to outperforming humans on many difficult math and science problems. Each new model release seems to shatter previous performance records: in 2024 alone, AI systems doubled their scores on leading scientific benchmarks.
Performance leaps continue to come at a staggering pace, and their implications could prove extremely significant. Almost half of all code on GitHub is now written with the help of AI, potentially accelerating the pace of technological progress and AI development itself. Companies are actively replacing human workers with AI agents that can work on their own. And governments are increasingly relying on AI tools to help with decision making, in both civilian and military capacities.
Should the developers of this technology achieve their ultimate goal, the implications would be dramatic. Leading AI companies openly pursue the creation of artificial intelligence that rivals — or surpasses — human capabilities. Such goals may simply be marketing hype. But many experts in the field — not just company spokespeople — also believe AI companies are on track to build so-called “artificial general intelligence”, or “AGI,” perhaps as soon as the next few years.
The possibilities of such technology are thrilling. Advanced AI systems could accelerate scientific and technological progress, fuel medical breakthroughs, and speed up economic growth — ultimately resulting in a better standard of living for us all.
Yet the risks are also considerable — some already materializing, others lurking on the horizon. Children find themselves harassed with deepfake nudes, people of color face discrimination from biased algorithms, and vulnerable individuals regularly fall prey to AI-enabled scammers.
As models grow more sophisticated, many experts fear they could aid terrorists in unleashing new pandemics, empower malicious actors to carry out devastating cyberattacks, or further enable authoritarian regimes to tighten their grip on society.
More advanced systems could also upend the economy, potentially leading to mass unemployment or social unrest. And while there is much debate on the subject, many experts, top AI company executives and scientists building advanced AI systems — including Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton — fear that uncontrollable human-level AI could result in human extinction or disempowerment.
The future will be shaped by the choices we make today — as societies, as governments, and as individuals. Who develops this technology, what problems it’s designed to solve, who benefits from it, and how we mitigate its risks — all these questions hinge on decisions being made right now.
But to make those decisions, we need better information. That is why Tarbell is committed to supporting journalism with funding and education, helping knowledgeable reporters and editors to demystify complex technologies, hold powerful entities accountable, and foster informed public discourse. We aim to support journalism that serves the public interest through fact-based reporting and diverse perspectives. Our goal is to ensure any transition to more advanced AI doesn’t happen in a black box, but instead in the light of public awareness and debate.
In supporting such journalism, we are committed to ensuring editorial independence and supporting reporting from a wide range of perspectives. While some of our programs have priority focus areas, within those we select what, and who, to fund based on merit and understanding, not ideological alignment. Journalists we support pursue stories guided by their own investigations, not our preferences.
There is a significant chance that AI will shape the course of human history — for better or worse. At Tarbell, we're committed to ensuring that if that happens, society has the information it needs to find the best path forward.