Karen Hao, the bestselling author of “AI Empire,” has seen Openai go from non-profit “laughter” to a $90 billion powerhouse that chases artificial general information at a fierce speed. Hao, who first introduced the company in 2020, says that the early vision of building AI “for the benefit of humanity” was quickly overtaken by the familiar Silicon Valley thinking.
This week, Hao joined TechCrunch’s equity podcast to unravel the direction of the AI boom and the direction of paying prices. Hao argues that, like historic empires, today’s AI giants rely on resource hoarding and exploitative labour to accumulate political and economic power, and that they do so at the expense of the environment. For investors and founders, it is a clear signal that the current path of AI takes real risk and that there is room for better models.
Hear and listen to the entire episode:
How did Openai’s three internal “clans” fight to shape the company’s trajectory of the hidden human costs of data labeling in developing countries?
Equity will return on Friday with weekly news roundups, so stay tuned.
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast produced by Teresa Loconsolo, posted every Wednesday and Friday.
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