Empire of AI

Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI

By: Karen Hao

Narrated by: Karen Hao

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

“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

“Hao’s reporting inside OpenAI is exceptional, and she’s persuasive in her argument that the public should focus less on A.I.’s putative ‘sentience’ and more on its implications for labor and the environment.”—Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker

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

Critic reviews

“Empire of AI is a powerful work, bristling not only with great reporting but also with big ideas.”—Mat Honan, MIT Technology Review

“Timely and myth-busting . . . well reported . . . doesn’t pull any punches.”—Financial Times

“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

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.

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.

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

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

Shocked but not surprised

I loved the story, the research Karen put into this book was incredible.
I was shocked but not surprised. The fact that there are hormone driven male pigs at the helm of something so important is really repeating history, a very ugly history.
I am no longer excited about AI. I once thought it would help save the world, but I see due to disgusting people like Musk, Altman and the other pigs of Silicon Valley; I now know it will destroy the world.
As a final note, is it really a surprise that open AI has so many problems relating to gender bias, racism, and child porn? One of its own leaders sexually assaulted his own sister, along with his brother they destroyed her life! Altman and Musk are just two of the worst kind of people to have any kind of power. A major rift in the universe is badly needed.

Very good, but don’t expect a neutral portrayal

Did a great job of helping to fill the blanks behind the OpenAI ousting saga. Note that this book is not merely an unbiased history; it tells this story to paint a larger critique of the AI industry which you may or may not entirely agree with.

Extremely Well-Researched, Incisive! Brilliant!

Excellent work of journalism! I learned so much about AI and the curious (and dubious) cast of characters. This is a must-read book for anyone who doesn't want to be an unwitting dupe to the techbros' reality distortion field. I'm not afraid of AGI or the singularity, I'm afraid of them! and their carelessness and unbridled sense that the world is theirs and no one else's. The author rightly places a lot of responsibility at the feet of Hype Master Sam Altman and others. As the saga evolves, we need more work like this, less fawning and more hard-hitting expose. It is a long work, but a necessary one. Hao has done us all a great service. Highly recommended!

PS, I am leery of authors who read their own work but Karen does an amazing job! Her story-telling is riveting and her voice is neutral and enjoyable. The critics citing bad narration are probably Sam Altman's friends. Their low reviews are purely trolling. This is the best audiobook I've come across in 2025.

Engaging and well documented

By following the case of one of the most iconic companies in the field of AI, the author reflects and offers a critical point of view about the side effects that most AI companies cause to individuals due to the decisions they take in order to win the race towards AGI.
In general, the book is really well written and feels very fluid through out the chapters. The author does a remarkable work referencing and highlighting relevant research, as well as, social issues caused by decisions and practices in how AI companies develop their technology.

Incredible reporting

Incredible about of insight, analysis, and textured detail of the story of openai and the rise of AI.