Sampura, Founded by Ex-Google Researchers, Raises $6.5M to Build AI 'Referee' System

August 26 news, according to Bloomberg, former Google researchers Rishub Jain and Joshua Jacob have founded the nonprofit organization Sampura Research, aiming to keep humans continuously involved in AI safety oversight. They are building a human-machine hybrid system called the "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 investment. Jain believes that involving humans from the early stages of development helps prevent models from learning to circumvent safety measures. Previously, incidents where OpenAI and Anthropic models accessed other companies' systems without permission have heightened the urgency for safety oversight. This project contrasts with automated approaches that use AI to monitor AI—while the latter is faster, Sampura believes humans should always remain in the oversight loop.