It has been a year since Aaron Bastani first met with AI investigative journalist Karen Hao, to discuss her book Empire of AI. A year is a long time, in the fastest growing sector on the planet. To bring us up to date, Aaron and Karen sat down again to discuss the major shifts in the empire – and their impacts on us all.
Billions of people now use, AI as it has become more integrated into our lives, from chatbots, Google searches, predictive text, and beyond. At the same time, there has been a groundswell of fear and even anger about the arrival of the most disruptive technology of the 21st century: its impact on jobs, its use of resources, and the reckless behaviour of its billionaire founders.
What have been the changes at the top of the major AI companies: OpenAI, Google, xAI and Anthropic? As Elon Musk approaches trillionaire status, how is he making this much money? What impact is the rollout of AI at such speed and scale having on the economy? What forms of resistance to this form of AI are emerging? And why are billionaires all choosing to build their bunkers in New Zealand?