We just got off a call with the technology journalist Karen Hao, the keenest chronicler of the technology that’s promising — or threatening — to reshape the world, who has a new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
The book talks not just about artificial intelligence and what it might be, or its most visible spokesperson and what he might believe, but also about the way the tech industry titans resemble more and more the empires of old in their relentless resource extraction and exploitation of labor around the world, their take-no-prisoners competitiveness against supposedly “evil” pretenders, and their religious fervor for progress and even salvation. She also told us about what the future might look like if we get A.I. right, and the people who produce the data, the resources, and control the labor power can reassert their ownership and push back against these new empires to build a more humane and human future.
You won’t want to miss this, so check out the full conversation above, and click on the image below to get a copy of Hao’s essential book.
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More Live conversations this week!
Join us tomorrow, Wednesday, May 28, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when we will meet Live with The Ink Book Club to wrap up our discussion of Abundance, and on Thursday, May 29, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when we’ll be back with messaging guru Anat Shenker-Osorio. We hope you can make it to both conversations!
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