Steven Bartlett with Karen Hao
In Steven Bartlett’s conversation with Karen Hao about her reporting in Empire of AI, Hao argues that the companies leading the AI race sell a utopian story of progress while offloading the real costs onto workers, communities, and the public.
Hao argues that AI companies extract vast amounts of data and depend on underpaid human labor, even as they promote systems that may displace many of those same workers.
She describes the buildout of large-scale AI infrastructure as materially costly, with data centers consuming enormous amounts of water and electricity in ways that can burden already vulnerable communities.
In Hao’s account, leaders often emphasize both existential danger and world-saving potential, a framing that can help justify keeping control concentrated among a small number of firms.