"Empire of AI": Karen Hao on How AI Is Threatening Democracy & Creating a New Colonial World
In a July Fourth special broadcast, longtime technology reporter Karen Hao discusses her book Empire of AI, which reveals how artificial intelligence companies—especially OpenAI—are accumulating political and economic power while causing significant social, labor, and environmental harms, including worker exploitation in Kenya and threats to freshwater resources in Chile.
In our July Fourth special broadcast, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of artificial intelligence companies — especially Sam Altman's OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology's detrimental impact on the environment. "This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms," says Hao in an extended interview.