University Friends Meeting Authoritarianism Book Club

You are therefore invited to join the UFM Authoritarianism Book Club in October to discuss Empire of AI: Dreams of Nightmares in Sam Altman's Open AI by Karen Hao on Sunday October 5th at 1PM via zoom. Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/2065476449

Karen Hao tells the inside story of Sam Altman and Open AI including a detailed account of Altman's relationship with Elon Musk and his firing and rehiring at Open AI. Hao details the company culture and shift away from a non-profit open source access mission to a proprietary Microsoft funded company that abandoned their mission to open access. Now in a tech arms race for data, Hao highlights the devastating effects of large data collection centers on the environment. AI data centers require huge amounts of clean water and energy and they are already devastating communities and taking their resources. AI also has a negative impact on foreign workers paying them as little as $1.00 an hour to complete AI tasks for Open AI. Bill Gates, funder of Open AI also predicts that AI will take most human jobs in the next 10 years. The author points out all of the predictions by Altman and Gates are speculation and their technology is not proven, rather it is pushed with religious zeal by a culture of tech bros who are in a race to dominate the technology. The book covers how women, especially women of color, have had their voices marginalized when bringing up concerns about bias towards people of color in AI models.

A long book, but a great read! Perfect for Audible. If you can not read the book but would like to join the conversation please watch these important author interviews:

Democracy Now: Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NzW3o8zFEc

Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbmQfmz7B98

1-hour interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9G_kXUm6mI