Empire of AI: Dreams & Nightmares in Sam Altman's Open AI with KAREN HAO

 Empire of AI: Dreams & Nightmares in Sam Altman's Open AI with KAREN HAO

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My book is called Empire of AI because I'm trying to articulate this argument and illustrate that these companies operate exactly like empires of old. I highlight four features that essentially encapsulate the three things you read. However, I started talking about it in a different way after writing the book.

The four features are: they lay claim to resources that are not their own, which is the centralization of resources; they exploit an extraordinary amount of labor, both in the development of the technology and the fact that they're producing labor-automating technologies that then suppress workers' ability to bargain for better rights; they monopolize knowledge production, which comes when they centralize talent.

Healing, Connection & Creativity in the Age of AI - ETGAR KERET on Why We Need Stories in Times of Crisis - Highlights

Healing, Connection & Creativity in the Age of AI - ETGAR KERET on Why We Need Stories in Times of Crisis - Highlights

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A Conversation with Author · Filmmaker ETGAR KERET
Winner of Cannes Film Festival’s Caméra d’Or · Charles Bronfman Prize & Sapir Prize

When I write my stories, I don't want to solve things in life. I just want to persuade myself that there is a way out. Maybe I am in a cell, maybe I'm trapped. Maybe I won't make it, but if I can imagine a plan for escape, then I'll be less trapped because at least in my mind, there is a way. I think that my parents are survivors. They always talked about this idea of humanity. My parents always said to me, when you look at people, don't look at their political views; that's not important. Look at the way that they look at you. If they see you, if they listen to you, if they can understand your intention, even if it's a failing one, they're your people. And if they can't, it doesn't matter.

I think that when I came with my mother and father, they thought there are people, there are human beings, and there are people who want to be human beings but are still struggling. And you go with humanity; you go with the person who can go against his ideology if his heart tells him something.

AI & Finding Humanity Through Storytelling w/ Author & Filmmaker ETGAR KERET

AI & Finding Humanity Through Storytelling w/ Author & Filmmaker ETGAR KERET

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A Conversation with Author · Filmmaker ETGAR KERET
Winner of Cannes Film Festival’s Caméra d’Or · Charles Bronfman Prize & Sapir Prize

When I write my stories, I don't want to solve things in life. I just want to persuade myself that there is a way out. Maybe I am in a cell, maybe I'm trapped. Maybe I won't make it, but if I can imagine a plan for escape, then I'll be less trapped because at least in my mind, there is a way. I think that my parents are survivors. They always talked about this idea of humanity. My parents always said to me, when you look at people, don't look at their political views; that's not important. Look at the way that they look at you. If they see you, if they listen to you, if they can understand your intention, even if it's a failing one, they're your people. And if they can't, it doesn't matter.

I think that when I came with my mother and father, they thought there are people, there are human beings, and there are people who want to be human beings but are still struggling. And you go with humanity; you go with the person who can go against his ideology if his heart tells him something.

Building a Vital Earth for Everyone with President of Environmental Defense Fund’s EDF Action DAVID KIEVE
What Do We Do with the One Life We’re Given? - Scientists, Writers, Philosophers & Changemakers Share their Stories

What Do We Do with the One Life We’re Given? - Scientists, Writers, Philosophers & Changemakers Share their Stories

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In this time of rapid technological change, how do we hold onto our humanity? How do stories, traditions, and community help us find meaning in loss and face an uncertain future? How can science, art, and spirituality open new pathways to understanding ourselves and the human experience?

AI, UFOs, Perception & Reality with Artist, Geographer, Author TREVOR PAGLEN - Highlights

AI, UFOs, Perception & Reality with Artist, Geographer, Author TREVOR PAGLEN - Highlights

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At the core of the work is that sense of curiosity, that sense of joy, that sense of beauty, and that sense of learning. I've been fortunate to have all kinds of strange and interesting experiences, whether that's seeing weird things in the sky over secret military bases in the middle of the Nevada desert, going scuba diving and finding internet cables on the bottom of the ocean, or tracking spy satellites in the sky and being able to predict when they'll appear in a flash against the backdrop of stars. The world around us is extraordinary and embodied, right? It is not on screens, and I’m very privileged to have that be so much a part of my process.

How AI is Shaping Perception, How Deception is Sculpting Our Reality with Artist TREVOR PAGLEN

How AI is Shaping Perception, How Deception is Sculpting Our Reality with Artist TREVOR PAGLEN

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How Deception is Sculpting Our Reality
A Conversation Artist, Geographer, Author TREVOR PAGLEN

At the core of the work is that sense of curiosity, that sense of joy, that sense of beauty, and that sense of learning. I've been fortunate to have all kinds of strange and interesting experiences, whether that's seeing weird things in the sky over secret military bases in the middle of the Nevada desert, going scuba diving and finding internet cables on the bottom of the ocean, or tracking spy satellites in the sky and being able to predict when they'll appear in a flash against the backdrop of stars. The world around us is extraordinary and embodied, right? It is not on screens, and I’m very privileged to have that be so much a part of my process.

Revolutionizing Investment Strategies with Carbon Tracker - MARK CAMPANALE - Highlights

Revolutionizing Investment Strategies with Carbon Tracker - MARK CAMPANALE - Highlights

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A Conversation with MARK CAMPANALE · Founder of Carbon Tracker

Carbon Tracker is a non-profit financial think tank focused on change and the energy transition. I set it up because I spent 20 years working in the financial world, and I noticed that a lot of coal, oil, and gas projects, even with all the evidence we know about climate change, were getting financed through banks and the stock market. It was almost as if investors were completely disregarding what climate change was going to do within our lifetime. What I wanted to do was challenge that, challenge the way people think, and challenge the financial operators, the bankers, stock exchange regulators, and investors to think about what climate change was going to do and what we could do about it. We're saying to the owners of these companies, the shareholders, "Why don't you think about what the world will look like in 50 years, and why are you putting these young people's pensions into coal, which we know is going to destroy the planet?"

Can Finance Revolutionize Climate Action? with MARK CAMPANALE, Founder of Carbon Tracker

Can Finance Revolutionize Climate Action? with MARK CAMPANALE, Founder of Carbon Tracker

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A Conversation with MARK CAMPANALE · Founder of Carbon Tracker

Carbon Tracker is a non-profit financial think tank focused on change and the energy transition. I set it up because I spent 20 years working in the financial world, and I noticed that a lot of coal, oil, and gas projects, even with all the evidence we know about climate change, were getting financed through banks and the stock market. It was almost as if investors were completely disregarding what climate change was going to do within our lifetime. What I wanted to do was challenge that, challenge the way people think, and challenge the financial operators, the bankers, stock exchange regulators, and investors to think about what climate change was going to do and what we could do about it. We're saying to the owners of these companies, the shareholders, "Why don't you think about what the world will look like in 50 years, and why are you putting these young people's pensions into coal, which we know is going to destroy the planet?"

Abolish Silicon Valley—How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism

Abolish Silicon Valley—How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism

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A Conversation with WENDY LIU

Abolishing Silicon Valley means freeing the development of technology from a system that will always relegate it to a subordinate role, that of entrenching existing power relations. It means designing a new system that isn't deluged in the logic of the bucket. It means liberating our worlds from the illegitimate ring of capital. Perhaps this sounds unfair to capital. Perhaps I sound like I'm not grateful enough for everything that capital has given us, but we don't owe capital anything; the things we attribute to capital were built by workers. People can labor and sometimes die in a process. Their contributions are unrecognized in death as in life. So don't thank capital. It doesn't deserve our gratitude, and it doesn't need it. Thank the people who created everything that capital always takes credit for. Capital is a means of accounting for wealth ownership, not its creation. And that means it's perpetually shrouded in a fundamental untruth; we can leap the swamp of capital behind and start over with something new. 

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liutalks with Wendy Liu. Ever since its publication, Abolish Silicon Valley—How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism has proven to be more urgent and insightful. Today, he talks with author Wendy Liu about how developments like AI and LLM, further erosions of intellectual property, and increased invasions of privacy make the case for abolishing Silicon Valley even more important. They talk about how abolition is critical at a time when more and more the private sector has come to eviscerate the public good. Turning to the genocide in Gaza, they discuss the ways Capital has enlisted technology in deadly and horrific manners. They end with a meditation on the commons and how one can live with fewer commodities and find value in common projects to make life more valuable and worthwhile outside of the logic of the market.

Life As No One Knows It - Exploring AIR Aspen with NICOLA LEES - Highlights

Life As No One Knows It - Exploring AIR Aspen with NICOLA LEES - Highlights

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& The Future of Museums
A Conversation with NICOLA LEES · Director of the Aspen Art Museum

It's a complicated time to think about how we can slow down, be still, and bring a brilliant group of people together to do something that feels purposeful and can be productive. It's a moment where things are moving so fast. When I brought up the idea of a hinge generation, I think it's impossible to know how we will look back and reflect on this time and these moments. This year, there is a real emphasis on the relationship between the question we have posed for the retreat, which is fundamentally about our relationship with technology and identifying our relationship with the world and how we want to be present in the moment.

Writing, AI & The Future of Humanity w/ VIET THANH NGUYEN

Writing, AI & The Future of Humanity w/ VIET THANH NGUYEN

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A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning Author VIET THANH NGUYEN

What I've discovered as a writer is that fear is a good indicator that there is a truth. To speak the truth in a society is oftentimes an act that requires some courage. Those processes of being an other for me in the United States were obviously very fundamental to shaping who I am as a person and as a writer. It was very difficult to undergo, but to become a writer who could talk about those issues was also a lot of fun. Writing The Sympathizer was a lot of fun, and I hope that the novel was enjoyable and humorous to read as well, despite its very serious politics. When I wrote The Committed, I also had a lot of fun as an outsider to France. In writing the novel itself, The Committed, there was a lot of humor, satire, and these kinds of tools to confront the tragedy of othering. This is very important to me as literary and political devices. I think I could do that in both The Sympathizer and The Committed because I had a lot of distance from the time periods that those novels described. My challenge right now is to try to find my sense of humor in describing what the United States is undergoing and doing to other countries, its own immigrants, and its own people of color, and minorities in the present. That's proving to be a little more challenging at this moment.

The First Artist-Led Global Summit & The Future of Museums - NICOLA LEES, Director, Aspen Art Museum

The First Artist-Led Global Summit & The Future of Museums - NICOLA LEES, Director, Aspen Art Museum

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& The Future of Museums
A Conversation with NICOLA LEES · Director of the Aspen Art Museum

It's a complicated time to think about how we can slow down, be still, and bring a brilliant group of people together to do something that feels purposeful and can be productive. It's a moment where things are moving so fast. When I brought up the idea of a hinge generation, I think it's impossible to know how we will look back and reflect on this time and these moments. This year, there is a real emphasis on the relationship between the question we have posed for the retreat, which is fundamentally about our relationship with technology and identifying our relationship with the world and how we want to be present in the moment.

‘Genius’ Entrepreneurs, Technofacists & Phobic Misogynists with BECCA LEWIS

‘Genius’ Entrepreneurs, Technofacists & Phobic Misogynists with BECCA LEWIS

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A Conversation with BECCA LEWIS

I think I've always been interested in the far-right end of technology, or I should say for several years that’s what I’ve been studying. However, I kept feeling that gender was understudied in these elements. When I was studying the alt-right online, the focus more than anything else was frequently on white nationalism and the racial dynamic. The scholars whose work really inspired me, like sociologist Jesse Daniels, showed how the racial dynamic was always interconnected with the gender dynamic. As I started following breadcrumbs and looking at certain figures, it became clear that gender was at the heart of their worldview, and there was no getting around it. There were absolutely elements around race and immigration and all sorts of different topics, but in many ways, gender was the core of the worldview, and everything else emanated from there.