Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI

By Karen Hao

Categories: Business & Money, Computers & Technology

In Empire of AI (2025), journalist Karen Hao tells the story of OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, drawing on interviews with people inside the company and years of reporting on artificial intelligence. Hao follows the company from its founding as a non-profit research lab to its race to build ever-larger models, including the boardroom crisis of 2023. She also reports on the costs of that race, from data workers in Kenya to the water and energy demands of data centres.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “A sobering perspective. Karen, thank you so much. Terrific book.”