Empire of AI

Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI

By: Karen Hao

Narrated by: Karen Hao

A New York Times Notable Book • Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • A New York Times Bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by Smithsonian, Scientific American, and Elle • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, NYPL Helen Bernstein Award, Whiting Award, Nautilus Book Award, and Porchlight Business Book Award

“A bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world . . . With Empire of AI, Hao is fundamentally shaping many people’s perceptions and understanding of the company at the center of the AI revolution.” —TIME Magazine, “TIME100 AI 2025”

“Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times

“Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.” —Vulture

From a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of the tech arms race in history that is reshaping the planet in real time

When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined, the organization was meant to act as a check against more purely mercantile forces. What could go wrong?

Over time, Hao wrestled with that question. Increasingly, she realized that this disruptive sector’s vision of success requires an unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. We have entered a new age of empire where only a handful of globally scaled companies can enter the field of play.

Armed with billions, pushing on trillions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained deep sourcing within the company and the industry, keeping in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes of what happened is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company. As Hao shows through intrepid global reporting, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. An astonishing eyewitness view from both the command capsule of the new economy and where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.

Phenomena

A great under the hood look at AI and the most powerful players in the delusional race to superiority

Answers so many questions

This book gave more answers to the many questions left unanswered after Sam’s random firing and reinstatement, Annie’s accusations of Sam’s abuse, the split and formation of Anthropic, Ilya’s departure etc.

Can tell it was well researched and Karen Hao has been able to form good relations with people involved with the matter to reveal insider perspectives.

Very valuable counter perspective to OpenAI marketing, helped me see how we can develop AI for broadly useful and non-exploitative uses with less compute and resources

Necessary.

Karen Hao has real access to insiders in an industry that makes lofty claims that are under scrutinized, despite its impact on our material and social world.

must read on ai

whether you're a doomer or boomer on ai.

this is a must read. one of the only 3rd party looks into the industry. inform yourself

Amazing narration as well.

It's not that difficult to see the greed behind the promise.

Good insight, occasionally too much detail. maybe the detail has helped for future understanding, but it could get a bit dense.