Brian Chau - How AI is Reinventing Investigative Journalism (Ep. 326)

Brian Chau, founder of Effort News, joins Infinite Loops to explore how AI could fundamentally reshape investigative journalism—not by writing articles, but by searching, analyzing, and connecting millions of legal, financial, and government records that humans could never examine manually.

Show Notes

Brian Chau & Effort News

• Effort News — Brian Chau’s document-led investigative journalism publication, using AI to search and analyze large datasets while keeping the reporting and final writing human-reviewed. Effort News
• About Effort News — More on Brian’s approach to AI-assisted investigative reporting and the publication’s editorial principles. About Effort News
• Effort’s Null Results — Investigations where Effort searched the available evidence but found no newsworthy result. Null Results
• Brian Chau on X — @brianchau57. Follow Brian on X

Investigations Discussed

• The $1.2B Refugee Services Program that Funds Pro-Asylum Religious Groups — Effort’s investigation into federal refugee-resettlement grants and the organizations receiving them. Read the investigation
• The 19th-Century Family Fortunes Funding Degrowth — Effort’s investigation tracing funding for Partners for a New Economy through donor-side disclosures and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation. Read the investigation
• Partners for a New Economy (P4NE) — The philanthropic fund discussed in Brian’s explanation of tracing obscured donor funding. P4NE
• Swiss Philanthropy Foundation — The organization that hosts P4NE’s pooled philanthropic fund. Swiss Philanthropy Foundation on P4NE
• How to Go Viral on the New X Algorithm — Effort’s analysis of X’s open-source recommendation algorithm, which Jim references near the end of the conversation. Read the investigation
• Freedom Fuel Network — Brian discusses Effort’s then-upcoming investigation into the mysterious network of discounted gas stations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Effort has since published its findings, Who Supplies Freedom Fuel?, on its site. Effort News

Books, Essays & Projects Mentioned

• Vesuvius Challenge — The project using machine learning, computer vision, and advanced scanning to read carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum without physically opening them. Vesuvius Challenge
• The Camp of the Saints — Jean Raspail — The 1973 novel Brian and Jim discuss while talking about how AI-generated writing has changed the way readers perceive older literary styles. The Camp of the Saints
• Influence — Robert Cialdini — Cialdini’s work on persuasion, referenced during the discussion of why large language models can be effective persuaders. Influence: Science and Practice
• What the Tortoise Said to Achilles — Lewis Carroll — Carroll’s 1895 dialogue about logic and infinite regress, discussed alongside Agrippa’s trilemma. Read the essay
• On Liberty — John Stuart Mill — Mill’s defense of liberty and free expression, which Brian critiques during the episode’s discussion of classical liberalism, consensus, and free speech. Read On Liberty