DEMOCRACY NOW, JANUARY 1, 2026
"EMPIRE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE": KAREN HAO ON HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS THREATENING DEMOCRACY AND CREATING A NEW COLONIAL WORLD. In
a New Year holiday special, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of the book Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment. “This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms,” says Hao in an extended interview.
Please click the link below OR copy and paste the link into your browser to watch the video. Note: the interview and the transcript of the interview is available on Democracy Now's official website "www.democracynow.org"
https://youtu.be/Xa6JuimHoEA?si=8Jv7RVc6QLiw4iGb
