DRUUMM Book Club | NonFiction Group

Hello bookworms!

We had an excellent discussion in August for our DRUUMM NonFiction Book Club Group!

In it we discussed Part I of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao. Our discussion included a diverse set of perspectives which greatly enhanced our understanding of the August readings.

For September, we will be reading Part II which is pages 141 to 223 if you are using the hardcover edition. Our next discussion is set for Sunday, September 28th. Please register for information on how to partake in the discussion of this book. We hope you can join us for what will be a marvelous discussion!

All DRUUMM Book Club groups are for members of DRUUMM only. If you would like to invite a friend to join the book discussion, make sure they are registered with DRUUMM. Send a message to devin@druumm.org if you ever need to contact the leader of this book group.

"Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era."

See you on the page,
DRUUMM Book Club