Karen Hao
Karen Hao
Karen Hao
Karen Hao has established herself as one of the most incisive voices examining the intersection of artificial intelligence, power, and society. Her journalism combines meticulous reporting with narrative flair, making complex technological and corporate narratives accessible without sacrificing depth or critical rigor. Hao’s work consistently probes beneath the utopian rhetoric that surrounds AI development, asking hard questions about who benefits, who bears the risks, and how the decisions made in a handful of boardrooms reshape the world for everyone else.
Her 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction recognizes Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, a work that exemplifies her investigative approach. The book traces the rise of OpenAI and its charismatic leader through the lens of Silicon Valley’s broken promises, examining how idealistic beginnings can calcify into something far more complicated. Through extensive reporting and original reporting, Hao constructs a portrait of ambition, ideology, and consequence that feels urgent and necessary at a moment when AI governance remains largely unmoored from public accountability.
