Searching For the First Step Towards a Better World: A Reflection on Overcoming the Empires Dominating the AI Landscape 

Justin Daba

On March 12, the Chan Centre of the Performing Art hosted a talk between Niami Klein and Karen Hao on the latter’s latest book, The Empire of AI. Karen Hao is a former Silicon Valley engineer who is now an award-winning investigative journalist. Her area of expertise is the genealogy of AI development. As a former Wall Street journalist and reporter for MIT Technological Review, Hao’s extensive experience and insider access to the hidden worlds of AI development informs the rich nuance and prophetic insights expressed in her journalism. Niamo Klein is a world-renowned journalist and academic, perhaps one of the most notable public intellectuals of our era, and is currently a professor for the Centre of Climate Justice at UBC. 

The talk covers the most salient features of current AI development, drawing on key insights expressed in Hao’s latest work. The book’s central thesis offers a theoretical framework to understand the current state of the AI arms race. Hao’s claim is that tech companies have assumed the status of “empires” in our world. Predicated on vast amounts of unethical resource and labour extraction to compute vast swaths of data to benefit the privileged and burden the poor,  the motives driving tech companies in their limitless pursuit of progress and power mimic the exact logic of imperial domination. 

The significance of the talk doesn’t rest in its piercing investigations into the problems that plague society, rather, it is grounded in the project of formulating pathways to realize a more just and equitable future. As Hao remarks; “there is a different way forward. Artificial intelligence doesn’t have to be what it is today… We’ll also need some more social cohesion and global cooperation”. This talk is one of the many stepping stones necessary in educating and extending this urgent project of re-directing the trajectory of AI development. 

As a high-level academic attuned to the environmental impacts of AI development, Klein began by asking Hao what the material costs would be for winning the AI race. Although there are different ways to fuel AI, Klein claims that “in the Trump era… [AI] is totally fused with fossil fuels,” as he calls it “the energy eating monster” as if to complement its deranged nature.  

Hao understands the race as deeply implicated with climate issues, its development thrives off of substantial expenditures of fossil fuels and resource denigration. Referring to the United Nations report, Hao states that the hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc) have “increased their emissions by 150% between 2020 and 2025,” and this is taken to be an underestimate, one made prior to Trump’s re-election. 

Hao further states that there are two ways to power data centers; connecting them to the grid or building a powerplant beside it. Companies have taken both routes, but the construction of power plants operates through methane gas turbines. Look at Elon Musk’s data centre “Colossus,” built in Memphis, operating off of “35 unlicensed methane gas turbines” – all taking place in a marginalized community of black and brown individuals. Not only negatively impacting the climate, this data centre is also “pumping thousands of tons of toxins into these communities”. 

My first impression upon hearing this was that this sucks. More evil people doing more evil things. I felt quite powerless and detached from the sheer scale of degradation being endured by these communities and the environment. I also felt a pang reverberate in my conscience – what is to be done? 

This community in Memphis, in a place called Boxtown, successfully prevented the placement of an oil pipeline a couple of years ago. I saw this event as an example of the latent potential resting not only in this small community, but in humanity more broadly. Extrapolating such an optimistic reading might be naive, but it seems to me, that once the imminence of the problem has reached our own backyards, we, as a collective, (I hope) will feel the urgent need to protect our homes and communities, and will be forced into taking action. 

But the pessimist in me thinks that things will have to get much worse before we feel the presence of a stranger in our backyards. The crossroad between imminent action and imminent destruction is still on the horizon, but we are getting close. 

Hao invokes a more optimistic example to illustrate her vision of humanity’s capacity to realize a more just future. 

Klein asks how influential average tech workers are in directing the broader trajectory of AI development. In response, Hao uses the example of  how data cleaners have mobilized their agency to fight against tech corporations and achieve more human working conditions.  

Data cleaners, often selected from the poorest regions of the world, essentially sift through the infinite amalgamation of content accumulated in datasets used by tech corporations. Their job involved potentially dealing with highly sensitive and explicit content, oftentimes having detrimental impacts on their well-being and life outside of work. 

Hao states: “This is one of the stories that I’ve drawn most inspiration from because these workers were truly in a dark place. And you would think that they actually have the least amount of agency in the world because they are in the most impoverished neighbourhoods”. Yet they were able to "organize in different types of orgnaiations… increasingly building solidarity with one another… to ultimately take care of themselves and also resist when this work when they are being poorly treated”. Through this example, Hao concludes that “they have actually shown that they have so much agency, and therefore all of us do as well”. 

I found this example particularly relevant. Perhaps the complacency of the first world amidst the AI revolution has something to do with the perpetual comfort we find themselves in. These workers found themselves in the depths and darkness that arose as a byproduct of AI development. We’re still smiling under the sun. They’ve mobilized their agency after slipping into the abyss. Things are bad for us, but we still have access to a standard of well-being that is perhaps warding off the necessity for urgent change. 

But perhaps this is not the case. We’re taking small steps towards change, the imminence of the necessity of action is slowly making itself apparent in the minds of most, but will it be too little too late? 

Let us return to a more productive discourse. The discussion ends with Hao making a few remarks on exactly how we can realize our visions of a better world. Klein poses the questions – where do we begin the revolution? Hao states that her “dreams are already manifesting” through the myriad forms of resistance being practiced through grassroots movements grounded in ethical principles, using AI to create a better world, rather than destroying it. She further states that 80% of Americans agree that we need regulation on AI, “the last time there was an issue where 80% of Americans were on the same side, probability happened before I was born”. 

In conclusion, I believe the content of the talk highlights a broader trend in the trajectory of AI development and humanity more broadly. We’ve come face to face with the plethora of negative impacts that are arising out of relentless pursuit of progress unregulated in speed and scale. Some are dealing with the political and existential impacts already, while others can see it encroaching from off in the distance. But what matters most is that we are at that crucial juncture where the problem has made itself evident, and I believe the talk acknowledges this in its orientation. 

Both Hao’s book and the discussion have done an extraordinary job illuminating the problem. And Hao has begun the hard work of formulating a solution. What is necessary now is to further develop a more concrete and actionable blueprint to overcome the hole humanity has dug itself into. We’ve reached the tipping point where we've come to realize the facade that was once the dream of technological mastery. Humanity awaits to be galvanized with the right approach to transcend the delirium of technology that has momentarily possessed us. 

This discussion, and Hao’s book, serves as a stepping stone in a long journey towards re-kindling a common pursuit towards a more just and equitable future.