Her modesty does her honour. She is doing very important work.
@archerbob6847
If I have a campfire in my backyard I get fined hundreds of dollars, but these guys doing infinitely worse without penalty is what is truly disgusting
@49islandgrns
This is a gross abuse of our land, water, and air.
@darren-evans-007
One security consultant famously said that billionaires kept asking him, “How do I keep my guards from killing me and taking the bunker?” They are essentially psychopaths and quite probably the origin story for the concept of demons in cultures across the world.
@breindigob
Its such a shame to see blatantly the ability to provide the power for the globe, and yet the only initiative is to replace the purpose of humanity. Just deeply dark, distroted world we live in.
@carysmeredith9909
I used Karen’s interview with Amy Goodman as a teaching resource for GCSE IT in Cardiff this year. She’s such an important voice.
@BillRobinson1805
The kleptocracy will change their story according to circumstance in order to protect their loot. Anything remotely plausible to save their rumps from the barbeque.
@JohnVance
This is what a lack of regulations and accountability gets us, not just with data centers but many industries.
@biglew1161
a politician should never ever have the authority to sign an NDA. they are supposed to serve the people, NOT just companies.
@Quinn-j5q7o
The problem with data centres in space is that a vacuum is, contrary to intuition, literally the worst environment for cooling you can possible have. First of all cooling works by conduction. A vacuum exerts a grand total of zero conduction, because there is nothing there to conduct the heat away. Secondly, space is not actually cold. In fact, it is extremely hot because there is no atmosphere to block out the sun. So to build a data centre in space you would need shielding and radiators several times bigger than the data centre itself. I suppose with enough money and time you COULD build such a thing, but it would literally be the least efficient data centre possible.
@LadyLesterPhotography
I had to get a permit to live temporarily in my RV on my own property while repairing my house. The county sent letters to neighbors and posted a public notice on my land. Meanwhile, massive data centers are built with far less public scrutiny. The double standard is hard to ignore.
@TwistedFireX
How long until Americans realize this isn’t getting resolved peacefully.
@the_rocs_roost
And my, oh my, when that bubble pops...
@nomad60453
Socialize the cost but privatize the profits. Typical corporate game.
@charlotte6-464
They are ruining nice neighborhoods, using up water and electricity raising the costs to the people who live around them.
It has been a year since Aaron Bastani first met with AI investigative journalist Karen Hao, to discuss her book Empire of AI. A year is a long time, in the fastest growing sector on the planet. To bring us up to date, Aaron and Karen sat down again to discuss the major shifts in the empire – and their impacts on us all.
Billions of people now use, AI as it has become more integrated into our lives, from chatbots, Google searches, predictive text, and beyond. At the same time, there has been a groundswell of fear and even anger about the arrival of the most disruptive technology of the 21st century: its impact on jobs, its use of resources, and the reckless behaviour of its billionaire founders.
What have been the changes at the top of the major AI companies: OpenAI, Google, xAI and Anthropic? As Elon Musk approaches trillionaire status, how is he making this much money? What impact is the rollout of AI at such speed and scale having on the economy? What forms of resistance to this form of AI are emerging? And why are billionaires all choosing to build their bunkers in New Zealand?
Empire of AI (2025) by Karen Hao is out in paperback from Penguin Books.
00:00 Introduction
03:17 Global Anxiety About AI
04:22 What’s Changed in AI in the Last Year?
09:29 Are Chatbots Unethical?
12:27 The AI Supply Chain
14:32 AI Bosses Know They Are Causing Harm but Don’t Care
17:47 How Top AI Bosses Think
20:06 Why Are Billionaires Building Bunkers in New Zealand?
21:35 The World’s First Trillionaire & AI’s Impact on Inequality
25:20 Meeting People Who are Struggling and Afraid Because of AI
29:16 Karen’s Personal Journey
35:23 Are We Being Good Ancestors?
37:47 What Happens When OpenAI Floats on the Stock Market?
39:56 Does OpenAI’s Sam Altman Deliberately Use Chaos as a Strategy?
42:58 How Has Sam Altman Changed Over Time?
45:48 Can Elon Musk Put Data Centers in Space?
50:57 Are Anthropic Really the Good Guys of AI?
53:56 Why do the AI Bosses Hate Each Other?
55:50 Another “Rare” Intervention from Tony Blair
57:37 Larry Ellison and Oracle
59:01 How the AI Industry Is Capturing US Politics
1:04:26 How the AI Lobbying Machine Works
1:11:35 The AI Resist List: How People Are Fighting Back
