The Download: a conversation with Karen Hao, and how did life begin?

In a wide-ranging Roundtables conversation for MIT Technology Review subscribers, journalist and author Karen Hao recently spoke about her new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. She talked with executive editor Niall Firth about how she first covered the company in 2020 while on staff at MIT Technology Review. They discussed how the AI industry now functions like an empire and went on to examine what ethically-made AI looks like. Read the transcript of the conversation, which has been lightly edited and condensed. And, if you're already a subscriber, you can watch the on-demand recording of the event here.