The AI Ethics Council, founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Operation HOPE CEO John Hope Bryant, announced today that Reid Hoffman (Co-Founder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI and Partner at Greylock) and Van Jones (CNN commentator, Dream Machine Founder and New York Times best-selling author) have joined as a members. Formed in December 2023, the Council brings together an interdisciplinary body of diverse experts including civil rights activists, HBCU presidents, technology and business leaders, clergy, government officials and ethicists to collaborate and set guidelines on ways to ensure that traditionally underrepresented communities have a voice in the evolution of artificial intelligence and to help frame the human and ethical considerations around the technology. Ultimately, the Council also seeks to help determine how AI can be harnessed to create vast economic opportunities, especially for the underserved.

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Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Jones join an esteemed group on the Council, which will serve as a leading authority in identifying, advising on and addressing ethical issues related to AI. In addition to Mr. Altman and Mr. Bryant, founding AI Ethics Council members include:

• George T. French, Jr, JD, PhD., President, Clark Atlanta University and Chair of Presidents, United Negro College Fund
• Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH, President, Spelman College
• Bernice A. King, JD, M. Div, CEO, The King Center
• David A. Thomas, PhD., President, Morehouse College
• Angela F. Williams, JD, M. Div, President and CEO, United Way Worldwide
• Ambassador Andrew J. Young, Chairman, The Andrew J. Young Foundation, former U.N. Ambassador, former Mayor of Atlanta and civil rights icon

An accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Mr. Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses. In 2003, he co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service, and in 2009, he joined Greylock as a partner. In 2022, Hoffman co-founded Inflection AI, an AI studio that created Pi. He currently serves on the boards of Aurora, Coda, Entrepreneur First, Microsoft, Nauto, and a few early stage companies. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards including Kiva, Endeavor, CZ Biohub, New America, Berggruen Institute, Opportunity@Work, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change. He is an Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, and a graduate of Stanford University.

Van Jones is a dynamic U.S. media personality, an entrepreneur and a world-class change maker. Outside of his roles as a CNN contributor, Van has used his resources and connections to improve clean energy solutions, criminal justice reform and racial inclusion in the tech sector. In 2021, Jones was one of the first two recipients of Jeff Bezos' Courage & Civility Award. In 2018, he helped pass the FIRST STEP Act – which the New York Times calls the most substantial breakthrough in criminal justice in a generation. In 2009, he worked in the Obama White House as the Special Advisor for Green Jobs. In 2007, Van was the primary champion of the Green Jobs Act, signed into law by George W. Bush. Most recently, he launched a non-profit organization, Dream Machine Innovation Lab, which aims to equip multicultural communities with the tools to properly harness artificial intelligence and spearhead the future of innovation through AI-focused workshops, networking events, educational programming and more. Over the past 25 years, Van has founded and led many successful social enterprises, including REFORM Alliance, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, Green For All and the Dream.Org. Jones is also an Emmy Award-winning producer and a three-time New York Times best-selling author.

About Operation HOPE, Inc.

Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to "silver rights" with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through its community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. For more information: OperationHOPE.org. Follow the HOPE conversation on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

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