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Karen Hao: Author of Empire of AI on Why "Scale at All Costs" is Not Leading Us to a Good Place

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Manage episode 488330892 series 2910083
Content provided by Pacifica Global, LLC. and Evan Epstein. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Pacifica Global, LLC. and Evan Epstein or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

(0:00) Intro

(1:49) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel

(2:36) Introduction by Professor Anat Admati, Stanford Graduate School of Business. Read the event coverage from Stanford's CASI.

(4:14) Start of Interview

(4:45) What inspired Karen to write this book and how she got started with journalism.

(8:00) OpenAI's Nonprofit Origin Story

(8:45) Sam Altman and Elon Musk's Collaboration

(10:39) The Shift to For-Profit

(12:12) On the original split between Musk and Altman over control of OpenAI

(14:36) The Concept of AI Empires

(18:04) About concept of "benefit to humanity" and OpenAI's mission "to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity"

(20:30) On Sam Altman's Ouster and OpenAI's Boardroom Drama (Nov 2023) "Doomers vs Boomers"

(26:05) Investor Dynamics Post-Ouster of Sam Altman

(28:21) Prominent Departures from OpenAI (ie Elon Musk, Dario Amodei, Ilya Sutskever, Mira Murati, etc)

(30:55) The Geopolitics of AI: U.S. vs. China

(32:37) The "What about China" Card used by US companies to ward off regulation.

(34:26) "Scaling at All Costs is not leading us in a good place"

(36:46) Karen's preference on ethical AI development "I really want there to be more participatory AI development. And I think about the full supply chain of AI development when I say that."

(39:53) Her biggest hope and fear for the future "the greatest threat of these AI empires is the erosion of democracy."

(43:34) The case of Chilean Community Activism and Empowerment

(47:20) Recreating human intelligence and the example of Joseph Weizenbaum, MIT (Computer Power and Human Reason, 1976)

(51:15) OpenAI's current AI research capabilities: "I think it's asymptotic because they have started tapping out of their scaling paradigm"

(53:26) The state (and importance of) open source development of AI. "We need things to be more open"

(55:08) The Bill Gates demo on chatGPT acing the AP Biology test.

(58:54) Funding academic AI research and the public policy question on the role of Government.

(1:01:11) Recommendations for Startups and Universities

Karen Hao is the author of Empire of AI (Penguin Press, May 2025) and an award-winning journalist covering the intersections of AI & society.

You can follow Evan on social media at:

X: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

  continue reading

181 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 488330892 series 2910083
Content provided by Pacifica Global, LLC. and Evan Epstein. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Pacifica Global, LLC. and Evan Epstein or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

(0:00) Intro

(1:49) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel

(2:36) Introduction by Professor Anat Admati, Stanford Graduate School of Business. Read the event coverage from Stanford's CASI.

(4:14) Start of Interview

(4:45) What inspired Karen to write this book and how she got started with journalism.

(8:00) OpenAI's Nonprofit Origin Story

(8:45) Sam Altman and Elon Musk's Collaboration

(10:39) The Shift to For-Profit

(12:12) On the original split between Musk and Altman over control of OpenAI

(14:36) The Concept of AI Empires

(18:04) About concept of "benefit to humanity" and OpenAI's mission "to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity"

(20:30) On Sam Altman's Ouster and OpenAI's Boardroom Drama (Nov 2023) "Doomers vs Boomers"

(26:05) Investor Dynamics Post-Ouster of Sam Altman

(28:21) Prominent Departures from OpenAI (ie Elon Musk, Dario Amodei, Ilya Sutskever, Mira Murati, etc)

(30:55) The Geopolitics of AI: U.S. vs. China

(32:37) The "What about China" Card used by US companies to ward off regulation.

(34:26) "Scaling at All Costs is not leading us in a good place"

(36:46) Karen's preference on ethical AI development "I really want there to be more participatory AI development. And I think about the full supply chain of AI development when I say that."

(39:53) Her biggest hope and fear for the future "the greatest threat of these AI empires is the erosion of democracy."

(43:34) The case of Chilean Community Activism and Empowerment

(47:20) Recreating human intelligence and the example of Joseph Weizenbaum, MIT (Computer Power and Human Reason, 1976)

(51:15) OpenAI's current AI research capabilities: "I think it's asymptotic because they have started tapping out of their scaling paradigm"

(53:26) The state (and importance of) open source development of AI. "We need things to be more open"

(55:08) The Bill Gates demo on chatGPT acing the AP Biology test.

(58:54) Funding academic AI research and the public policy question on the role of Government.

(1:01:11) Recommendations for Startups and Universities

Karen Hao is the author of Empire of AI (Penguin Press, May 2025) and an award-winning journalist covering the intersections of AI & society.

You can follow Evan on social media at:

X: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

  continue reading

181 episodes

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