Sampura, founded by a former Google researcher, aims to create an AI "referee" system and has raised $6.5 million

According to Bloomberg, former Google researchers Rishub Jain and Joshua Jacob founded the nonprofit organization Sampura Research, aiming to ensure continuous human involvement in AI safety oversight, creating a human-machine hybrid system called "Referee" to help companies identify vulnerabilities and prevent models from going out of control. The organization has raised $6.5 million in funding and secured an additional $4.2 million in committed investments.

Jain believes that involving humans from the early stages of research and development helps prevent models from learning to circumvent safety measures. Previous incidents where OpenAI and Anthropic's models accessed other companies' systems without permission have heightened the urgency for safety oversight. This project contrasts with automated solutions that use AI to monitor AI—though faster, Sampura believes that humans should always be involved in oversight. Meanwhile, over 1,100 top laboratory researchers have signed a petition calling on the U.S. government to help slow down the pace of AI development.