Empire of AI

Empire of AI documents the race toward artificial general intelligence and the human and environmental cost that race has already required. Karen Hao spent years reporting inside and around OpenAI. The result is one of the most meticulously sourced accounts of the current AI industry available.

Hao holds a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, and her technical grounding shows in how precisely she documents her claims. She traces OpenAI’s founding, its shift from nonprofit research lab to commercial powerhouse, and the internal conflict that briefly removed Sam Altman before reinstating him. She also reports on the workers in Kenya and elsewhere whose labor trained the safety systems behind today’s chatbots. She documents the water and mineral costs behind the data centers that run them.

The book reads with clear frustration toward Altman and the companies leading the AI race. Readers should weigh that tone against the documentation itself, which stands on its own regardless of the author’s evident distaste for her subject. Biographies of founders in other fast-moving industries tend to reveal a similar pattern. Relentless drive gets paired with a public image that differs from the private reality.

This is a book about how a multibillion-dollar technology company actually gets built, with all the internal drama that comes with it.

Recommended for general readers who want to form an informed view on AI policy. It also suits any security or compliance professional who wants the fuller picture behind the tools their organizations now depend on.

Originally published in ISSA Journal’s "The Cyber Library" column, November-December 2025 issue, by Jay Carson, Semper Sec’s Cyber Librarian. Read more at issa.org.