My review of "Empire of AI" by Karen Hao

Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a highly opinionated book that answers the following question:

- Why did Sam Altman get fired from OpenAI and then come back (long answer and not that exciting unless you're into corporate drama)
- How does OpenAI and big tech companies affect me, and how they affect the world?
- Should the power of AI and all that it entails be concentrated in the hands of very few people?

I gained a lot of insights into the way Silicon Valley tech dudes think about AI. I didn't know that there were two camps when it comes to thinking about General Artificial Intelligence (Doomers and Boomers) this was all very interesting to me. Fascinating. The chapters about power consumption and and what's going on in Chile and Uruguay are upsetting.

This book is well researched, one thing I'd say is not really focused on one thing per se, there's stuff about Altman's personal life, stuff about OpenAI and it's drama and stuff about the tech industry in general, these are all somewhat tied together, but besides all that, this is a must-read for everyone with a job that requires technical knowledge.

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