“Empire of AI”: Karen Hao on How AI Is Threatening Democracy & Creating a New Colonial World
January 1, 2026
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56:16Now Playing“Empire of AI”: Karen Hao on How AI Is Threatening Democracy & Creating a New Colonial World
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In a New Year holiday special, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of the book Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment. “This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms,” says Hao in an extended interview.
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