Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy Karen Hao exposes how AI bros are building an EMPIRE to control the future
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May 22, 2026 
Karen Hao, author and journalist who exposes the social and political forces shaping AI. She traces how a handful of firms chase dominance, the resource and labor extraction behind large models, and the mythmaking that makes AI seem inevitable. Conversations explore industry motives, grassroots resistance, and how democracy and dignity might reclaim technology’s direction.
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Bicycles Versus Rockets In AI Development
- Karen Hao warns tech firms sell the benefits of small-scale AI while building resource‑intensive, large models that harm society.
- She likens it to selling bicycles while constructing rockets that consume vast data, energy, land, and water.
AI As A Resource‑Grabbing Empire
- Hao frames AI as an empire that consolidates resources and power by dispossessing others of data and labor.
- She cites unpaid data appropriation and mass gig annotation work that trains models while eroding stable employment.
Workers Teach The Tools That Replace Them
- Hao describes a vicious cycle where firms lay off knowledge workers now to later replace them with AI, pushing people into low‑paid gig annotation.
- Laid‑off professionals then teach models the expertise that automates their original jobs.