Tech Won't Save Us We All Suffer from OpenAI’s Pursuit of Scale w/ Karen Hao [Replay]
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Jan 8, 2026 
Karen Hao, an acclaimed technology journalist and author of Empire of AI, dives into the controversial practices of OpenAI under Sam Altman’s leadership. She articulates how the relentless drive for scale leads to exploitation of workers and environmental harm. Karen shares insights on the evolution of AI, highlighting issues like surveillance capitalism, polluted datasets, and the monopolization of AI talent. She calls for more responsible, task-specific AI approaches while exposing the hidden costs of aggressive scaling in the tech industry.
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Company Mission Versus Practice
- OpenAI's origin story masked strategic shifts from nonprofit ideals to competitive, secretive practices.
- Karen Hao argues we must view OpenAI as a new empire to understand its societal effects.
Leaked Documents Expose Early Shifts
- Early OpenAI documents and lawsuits revealed leaders privately acknowledging they would not stay open.
- Karen Hao used leaked documents and reporting to show pivots from openness to secrecy and commercial intent.
Bottlenecks Drove Strategy
- OpenAI repeatedly identified and solved successive bottlenecks: talent, then capital, then compute.
- That pattern explains its shifting structure and strategic pivots over the decade.
