Mark Fiore

After completing a John S. Knight fellowship at Stanford University, Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Fiore co-founded SFAI.agency, a startup that protects creators in the age of AI. Shining a light into the (supposedly) mysterious black boxes that are AI models, the team at SFAI determines what specific creative works were used in training — while pushing for creative consent, copyright and compensation.

Before launching SFAI, Fiore created political cartoons and animation, leading the Wall Street Journal to call him “the undisputed guru of the form.” His cartoons have appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com, NPR’s web site and is is more recently seen on The Progressive, KQED and Daily Kos. Fiore’s political animation has appeared on Al Jazeera, The Recount, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe.

Mark Fiore won the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning in 2010, was a Pulitzer finalist in 2018, received a 2016 Herblock Prize, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2004 and has twice received an Online Journalism Award for commentary from the Online News Association (2002, 2008). Fiore has received two awards for his work in new media from the National Cartoonists Society (2001, 2002), and in 2006 received The James Madison Freedom of Information Award from The Society of Professional Journalists.

Beginning his professional life by drawing traditional political cartoons for newspapers, Fiore’s work appeared in publications ranging from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times. At the turn of the century (the 21st), he began to experiment with animating political cartoons and, after a short stint at the San Jose Mercury News as their staff cartoonist, Fiore devoted most of his energy to animation.

Growing up in California, Fiore also spent a good portion of his life in the backwoods of Idaho. It was this combination that shaped him politically. Mark majored in political science at Colorado College, where — in a perfect send-off for a cartoonist — he received his diploma as commencement speaker Dick Cheney smiled approvingly.