Karen Hao Audiobooks

The reporter who covers AI as power rather than gadgetry, heard here in Empire of AI

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.4/5 average

1 listener rating

Who is Karen Hao?

Karen Hao (born around 1993) is an American journalist and author, and one of the essential bylines on the artificial intelligence beat – not the breathless end of it, but reporting on AI research, technology ethics and what these systems actually do to people and societies. She writes for publications including The Atlantic, and her postings tell the story of the territory: foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, senior AI editor at the MIT Technology Review, and earlier stints at Quartz as a tech reporter and data scientist.

Unusually for a journalist on this patch, she has an engineer’s background, having worked as an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of X Development. She also co-produced the podcast In Machines We Trust and wrote the newsletter The Algorithm – so she was audio-literate long before her work reached audiobook length.

Karen Hao in audiobooks

Our catalogue features Empire of AI, and the title does a lot of work: this is artificial intelligence examined as power – who builds it, who profits, who pays – rather than as gadgetry. Hao’s particular strength is double literacy: she can read the code and the consequences, and that combination gives her reporting an authority most AI commentary simply lacks.

In audio it makes for gripping and occasionally uncomfortable listening for UK audiences watching the same systems arrive in their workplaces, schools and hospitals. For anyone who wants the AI story told beyond the press releases, this is the reporter to trust – and Empire of AI is the obvious way in.