AI's Hidden Costs and Colonial Echoes

Hello!

Today we have on repeat guest Karen Hao to talk about her new blockbuster book “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.” It’s an amazing, deeply reported book that somehow encapsulates the history of AI, Silicon Valley, and OpenAI while also making a needed and clear argument about how we should think about this technology. Truly like if “Barbarians at the Gate” met “The Shock Doctrine” and it was about AI. We talk about the beginnings of OpenAI, how it burns a colonial path throughout the rest of the world in the form of data centers and exploitative labor, and how we might find a better alternative to Sam Altman’s plan to take over the world. Can’t recommend this book more highly — go get it!

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