Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI

Hao is an American tech journalist best known for her reporting on AI technology and ethics. Hao’s reporting has revealed critical issues with emerging technologies from big tech firms like Google, Facebook/Meta, and OpenAI. Hao began her career in the tech industry working at a “tech startup” shortly after her graduation from MIT. In 2017, she pivoted to a career in tech reporting. Her work has been featured in Quartz, MIT Technology Review, and The Atlantic.

In 2019, Hao’s editor assigned her to write a profile of OpenAI for the MIT Technology Review. Hao became “the first journalist to gain extensive access to the company and to write its first profile” (12). Hao was initially excited about OpenAI’s mission. She saw it as unique among Silicon Valley tech startups in that it was driven not by profit but by the desire to benefit all of humanity. However, she quickly became disillusioned during the three days she spent embedded with the company. In 2020, she published her profile of OpenAI in the MIT Technology Review entitled, “The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI’s bid to save the world.” It criticized their lack of transparency and inattention to ethical problems in the development of artificial intelligence technology.