Empire of AI

Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI

De: Karen Hao

Narrado por: Karen Hao

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 arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy

When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?

Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost 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. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations?

Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.

©2025 Karen Hao (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Our lives are about to be remade by artificial intelligence—or to be more accurate, by a few companies run by a few very self-confident people. If you ever wondered whether all of this is inevitable, whether to believe all the promises of tech luminaries, whether we could save a little bit of our democracy in the age of AI, then read this book!” —Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor, MIT, and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

“With devastating revelations, deep insider research, and delightful page-turning delivery, Karen Hao shows us why she is one of the foremost tech journalists covering AI. From data centers in Chile to data workers in Kenya, Empire of AI reveals the hidden human and environmental costs behind AI products that have triggered a race for land, water, and cheap labor to cement power in the hands of a few. Empire of AI is the warning we need—just as more open and less energy-intensive alternatives reveal that a different AI future is possible and achievable.” —Dr. Joy Buolamwini, founder of Algorithmic Justice League and best-selling author of Unmasking AI

“In her brilliant book, Empire of AI, Karen Hao chronicles the mania surrounding artificial intelligence and OpenAI. With a cast of scientists, scammers, and scoundrels, Empire of AI documents the hype campaign that caused the world to fall in love with a technology whose immediate harms are legion and benefits remain unproved.” —Roger McNamee, New York Times-bestselling author of Zucked

Large focus on individuals' perceived social issues

I wish the author would have stuck with real world problems instead of focusing a large portion of work on subjective individual perceptions of how others may perceive them. I do not intend to jump to conclusions, or to be deluded with conspiracy theories. I was hoping for a smooth layout of facts, but was force-fed opinions.

An Important Voice

While I may not agree with all the sentiments and perspectives well articulated in this book, I do believe that Karen has presented an important voice for a technology that at a minimum is changing lives of so many and at such a dizzying pace, and that at current rate could profoundly reshape economies and geopolitics not just between US and China but also throughout the world.

Enlightening, depressing, & exciting......?

Thank you Karen...Not know much of the story I figured as much. Please continue your work, shedding light on these issues. I hope that there are more like you. I will recommend this book to all and talk about it. On another level as I was reading I could not help liken this AGI or Super intelligence to a cornered wild animal. It is so unfortunate and unfair so many people have been and will be hurt in the coming years. Why.....? money? power? to what end? If AGI was rolled out in a democratic way, wow! It would truly be world changing. I think that without a strong central governance though we are going to see some additional horrible consequences between the haves and Have Nots. We know where that goes...... it's a big problem. Leaves me reciting the Serenity Prayer one more time and writing my congressman.

Well-researched. Timely. Informative. Karen is brilliant and kind!

It’s disappointing to see this book rated poorly. Empire of AI is a thoughtful, well-researched, and timely account of a world-changing technology. The author—an MIT-trained engineer—writes with clarity, insight, and compassion. She’s exactly the kind of person we need weighing in on the promises and risks of AI. This book deserves to be read widely

The author cannot decide which direction to attack Altman from

According to the author, Altman is simultaneously a control freak and also in danger of creating uncontrollable AI. He simultaneously treats people badly and also inspires fierce loyalty. OpenAI simultaneously fails to include diverse perspectives and practices AI colonialism by making use of data from the Global South. There were times when I wondered if the book was written by Schrödinger.

The author is also guilty of a common blind spot of western-based journalists, which is to think American policies would miraculously transfer by osmosis to the rest of the world. E.g. If American AI companies regulate their AI development responsibly, all other countries will automatically do so because of the glory of America. This naïveté threatens to be a sophon (IYKYK) on American AI while letting other countries power ahead.

Brutal Narrating

After hearing the author on a podcast, I was so looking forward to this book that I pre-ordered it. Unfortunately, the narration is so flat and lifeless that it’s almost impossible to listen to. I tried adjusting the speed, but nothing helps—it’s the female equivalent of “Bueller… Bueller…” If you’re looking for a monotone podcast to put you to sleep, this might work. Otherwise, I’d recommend skipping the audiobook.