Book Discussion: Empire of AI by Karen Hao

​Empire of AI investigates how artificial intelligence is being built, controlled, and governed, and who truly benefits from its rapid expansion. Karen Hao, a longtime AI reporter, exposes the concentration of power behind modern AI systems, from massive compute resources and proprietary data to the geopolitical and labor forces that sustain them. For founders, operators, and forward-thinking professionals, the book offers a critical lens on AI beyond hype: examining ethical risk, structural inequality, regulatory pressure, and long-term sustainability. In a moment when AI is reshaping entire industries, Empire of AI challenges builders and decision-makers to ask not just what we can create, but what kind of technological future we are actively constructing.

​This meeting is designed for readers to engage directly with the text. Please come prepared having read Empire of AI. Discussion will be grounded in the book’s claims and analysis; broader AI debates not tied to the text will be redirected to keep the conversation focused and productive.