#433 - Empire of AI: A Dialogue with Karen Hao episode artwork

EPISODE · Jun 30, 2025 · 52 MIN

#433 - Empire of AI: A Dialogue with Karen Hao

from Converging Dialogues · host Converging Dialogues

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Karen Hao about OpenAI and the current landscape about AI. They discuss the origins of OpenAI, Sam Altman and his motivations, his relationships with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, using cheap labor in Venezuela and Kenya for AI, supercomputers and mega campuses for data centers, and many more topics. Karen Hao is a bestselling author and award-winning reporter covering artificial intelligence. She was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of Google[x]. She received a B.S. in mechanical engineering and minor in energy studies from MIT. She has written for many publications such as The Atlantic and others. Previously, she was a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal focused on AI & China, and a senior editor at MIT Technology Review, where she wrote about the latest AI research & its social impacts. She has been a fellow with the Harvard Technology and Public Purpose program, the MIT Knight Science Journalism program, and the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network. She was the first journalist to profile OpenAI and author of the book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jun 30, 2025

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#433 - Empire of AI: A Dialogue with Karen Hao

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Thee Mad Cast Bleav The Mad Cast Podcast hosts Influencer Thee Mademoiselle’s greatest online content and features EXCLUSIVE guests and content that dives headfirst into the realm of hard conversations and unapologetic rants. Tune in as Thee Mademoiselle fearlessly tackles controversial topics, challenges societal norms, and engages in thought-provoking dialogues that push boundaries. Prepare to have your perspectives challenged and your opinions questioned. Explicit Self Development Dialogues Self Development Dialogues We’re Joe & Gio, two lifelong friends who have overcome countless challenges and are continuously working towards mastering our mindsets and becoming our best selves. Join us as we share a couple of things we’ve learned along the way that could help you too! Explicit America, Who Hurt You? The Meteor, Foment Productions Our country has always been a hot mess. But now, between political rage, climate crises and social-media polarization, it’s quite literally on fire. This low-key mid-apocalyptic moment has raised a question for Tony-award-winning Sarah Jones and her many characters: America, Who Hurt You?Bookended by the debates, dialogues, and hilarious digressions of the characters made famous by Sarah’s one-person shows and acclaimed film Sell/Buy/Date, this podcast explores our political dramas, personal traumas, and how the two are connected. Plus: we’ll have some of the smartest people we know stop by to sit with Sarah and unpack it all. America, Who Hurt You? holds up a loving but accurate mirror to our country’s range of faces as we try to save democracy—or at least stop doom-scrolling. Explicit Humans On The Loop Michael Garfield Let's dream better! Join paleontologist-futurist Michael Garfield for bold, far-ranging explorations into the nature of agency in the age of automation, wisdom and innovation, responsibility and power, and the care and feeding of the new superpowers conferred to us by magical technologies. Weekly dialogues at the edge of the knowable, learning to navigate Global Weirding and exponential AI with the curiosity and play required of us. Building on twenty years of independent research plus firsthand experience of the tech, arts, and science worlds, Humans On The Loop is a show to transform you and help us make better use of our greatest natural resource: our attention. michaelgarfield.substack.com Explicit

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This episode was published on June 30, 2025.

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In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Karen Hao about OpenAI and the current landscape about AI. They discuss the origins of OpenAI, Sam Altman and his motivations, his relationships with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, using cheap labor in...

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