About the author
Karen Hao is an American journalist and author who has covered artificial intelligence research, technology ethics, and the social effects of the industry. Her reporting has appeared at MIT Technology Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and other publications.
Empire of AI combines reporting inside OpenAI with work in the places supplying data labor, electricity, water, and other resources to the AI boom. A published water-use comparison was later corrected after a unit-conversion error, an important limitation when reading that part of the argument.
Where to start
Start with Empire of AI. It traces OpenAI's institutional history and argues that the race for larger models concentrates power while distributing labor and environmental costs around the world.
