Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
Karen Hao · first published 2025 · ISBN 9780593657508
Hao pulls back from technical debates to ask who controls AI development and what they're optimizing for. She investigates OpenAI's path from nonprofit to capped-profit, the intense competition with Google, and how geopolitical concerns shape the race. The book centers power, incentives, and governance as much as capability.
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The Best Books About Artificial Intelligence
This is the critical look at how AI systems get built and deployed in the real world, not in labs. If you've wondered about the business dynamics behind ChatGPT or worried about concentration of power, this connects those concerns to concrete decisions and rivalries.