← There Are No Girls on the Internet
There Are No Girls on the Internet
Sam Altman Isn’t Building a Company, He’s Building an Empire (with Karen Hao)
00:55:11
Loading summary
Transcript121 lines
- [00:00]
Inner Balance Advertiser
If you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance, the first all in one prescription Strength Bioidentical Hormone Cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again. That's innerbalance.com Shake it up with Vital
- [00:34]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Protein's collagen and protein Shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With 0 grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan, it's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital. Learn more@vitalproteins.com Every business has an ambition.
- [01:06]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on the future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations. Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?
- [01:37]
Karen Howe
Right?
- [01:37]
Bridget Todd
And the best part?
- [01:38]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
They accept Discover.
- [01:40]
Bridget Todd
Accept Discover in a little place like this?
- [01:43]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
I don't think so. Jennifer. Oh yeah, huh?
- [01:45]
Karen Howe
Discover is accepted where I like to shop.
- [01:47]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
Come on baby, get with the times.
- [01:50]
Karen Howe
Right? So we shouldn't get the parachute pants.
- [01:53]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
These are making a comeback, I think.
- [01:57]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Discover is accepted at 99% of places
- [01:59]
Karen Howe
that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.
- [02:04]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Do you want to find a stress free way to buy your next car?
- [02:07]
Karen Howe
Start at CarMax and shop your way.
- [02:10]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
If you want to browse with confidence, get pre qualified online with no impact
- [02:14]
Karen Howe
on your credit score and shop cars within your budget. From luxury cars to family rides, CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than 25,000 cars priced under $25,000.
- [02:28]
Jacob Goldstein
So hey, want to get started?
- [02:29]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Just head to CarMax.com for details and
- [02:32]
Karen Howe
get pre qualified today. Want to drive CarMax? If someone knocked on your door and was like, I'm going to sell you a potion that can cure all of your problems, but it's just going to cost everything you've ever owned, including your firstborn child. You would be like this, a scam.
- [02:55]
Bridget Todd
There are no girls on the Internet. It's a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this is There are no girls on the Internet. Few journalists have covered AI with the depth and rigor of Karen Howe. Her book Empire of AI takes tells the story of OpenAI and Sam Altman not as someone trying to start a tech company, but rather someone trying to start an ever expanding empire. Now with her new BBC podcast, the Interface, Karen and her co hosts are pulling back the curtain on how tech shapes everything from politics to our most personal lives. Karen's voice in tech is critical, but it happened very much by accident. What brought you to reporting on both OpenAI and then AI in general?
- [03:51]
Karen Howe
Total accidents, both of them. So I had a interesting route into journalism. I studied engineering in college and thought I would work in the tech industry, which I did when I graduated. And very quickly, after experiencing a little over a year of Silicon Valley, I realized that it was not for me. I joined the tech industry at a time when in it was 2015, 2016 era, when the. What was called the tech backlash or the tech lash was just starting because people were starting to realize how powerful these companies were and how they were actually often undermining the public interest. And so I thought I would have. I thought I needed to find another career. And so on a whim, I pivoted to journalism because I was like, the only other skill I have is writing, so maybe I can get a job in journalism. And I couldn't find a job in what I wanted to report on, which was the environment, because I had no experience in journalism or in the environment. But I figured out that I could parlay my tech experience working in the tech industry into reporting on tech. And so I started applying for tech reporting jobs. And the only job offer that I got was to cover AI.
- [05:13]
Bridget Todd
When Karen was assigned to cover AI at first she wasn't thrilled. The landscape looked nothing like it does today. None of the breathless hype, none of the alarm bells. It was a different time. So Karen thought that AI might be kind of a dud beat.
- [05:33]
Karen Howe
When I received that job offer, I actually was so disappointed. Like, I thought that it would be the least interesting job ever. And I almost didn't take it, like, to try and find another option. But then I ended up giving it a try because I just needed something. And within months Just like two months, I absolutely fell in love with the beat because I realized that it was so much more than I had understood and it was an opportun need to explore every facet of tech in society like I wanted to. And then because I was covering AI for MIT Technology Review, which is a very research at the time was a very research focused publication. It was looking at the cutting edge stuff happening in labs before commercialization potential. And AI at the time was at that stage without a lot of commercial activity, primarily being developed in academic labs or in corporate labs.
- [06:34]
Bridget Todd
So how did you start covering OpenAI specifically?
- [06:37]
Karen Howe
OpenAI came on my radar because it was one of the research labs that billed itself as having absolutely no commercial interest. And because I was the junior AI reporter on staff and OpenAI was just important enough to have a profile, but not so important to put the senior AI reporter on it. I ended up being the one assigned to Profile OpenAI and that's how I ended up accidentally being the first journalist to ever profile OpenAI.
- [07:08]
Bridget Todd
It is so funny to take that walk down memory lane and think about how different OpenAI started as because I had this almost the same trajectory of thinking, oh, this is a really academic, non profit organization. Don't probably, don't need to really like look too hard at what they're doing. And that, I mean saying that now sounds absurd. You know how quickly they've gone from oh, we're not a commerce, we're not, we don't have commercial interest to we are building an empire and we are going to take over the world.
- [07:40]
Karen Howe
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's super. Like I think at the time I had a totally different perception of OpenAI than I do now. So in the sense that when I started profiling the company that it was already clear that they were leaving behind the mission of being a nonprofit, being open and being in the public interest. But I had this impression that it started that way and then it was sort of corrupted along the way by commercial interest. But in hindsight, after reporting my book, I realized that actually there was a seed of corruption from the very beginning within the company because OpenAI set itself up to be a nonprofit specifically because it wanted to be the number one AI lab and beat Google, which was at the time the dominant AI player. And they, I, I think what happened is that with this goal in mind of being number one and dominating in this space, they realized that they couldn't compete with Google on money because they simply didn't have that. As much like Google being one of the richest companies in the world. They could. Google could always outbid OpenAI on salaries and outspend OpenAI on various things. And so in order to recruit talent, which was the first bottleneck that OpenAI had to overcome, they were able to instead appeal to researchers on a sense of mission and purpose, which allowed them to then ask these researchers to take pay cuts and to consider jumping ship from Google or from another lucrative job to this more startup type environment. And it was once they overcame that bottleneck of gathering up all of the researchers that they then kind of started slowly getting rid of the nonprofit because it had lost its utility. And their bottleneck shifted to capital. But the goal was always the same. The goal was actually not let's create an AI lab that is hugely open and transparent for the to the public interest. It like priority number one was always let's be number one and dominate. And they shifted their tactics over time based on what they needed in that moment.
- [10:03]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Do you think some of those researchers later felt burned or that they had been deceived after that process came to more or less completion of transitioning away from the nonprofit status that had initially attracted them?
- [10:19]
Karen Howe
Absolutely. I think this was one of the most interesting things for me when reporting the book and speaking with different so many employees from different eras of the company is that first of all, this is like having covered lots of different tech companies, like I've written about Facebook, about Google, about Microsoft. OpenAI is the only company where employees cannot agree whether it is a company and and like that like it the their opinion about whether it is a company and like what ultimately it stands for and what is even the purpose of this organization is completely based on when they started at the organization. So early day employees, they still think of or thought of OpenAI as a non profit that just had to make some concessions and start to look a little bit more company. Whereas employees that were joining after OpenAI had already started the for profit, had already raised a bunch of capital and were building commercial products. They simply saw it as just another tech company like any other tech company in Silicon Valley. And this is like, yeah, like I had a funny conversation with one of my fact checkers when she was going through all the the interviews. Like she had the same exact OPP observation. And I was like, I feel so validated because I thought I was going crazy interviewing these people and being like this isn't normal, right? Like usually when you work for an entity, you should be able to define whether or not the basics about that entity, like whether it's a company or a nonprofit. But because of OpenAI's history, it's this. It was this prism or this mirror that every single employee was holding up to themselves, and they were seeing something totally different.
- [12:08]
Bridget Todd
So I listened to a lot of tech leaders for the podcast, and generally I have a hard time trusting any of them. But that is especially true for Sam Altman. This actually came up when I was working on my own audiobook. I just kind of got the sense that he is someone who will say whatever, whenever, and I don't think any of that is an accident either. He is what I would call a slippery fish. How did you nail him down for your book Empire of AI?
- [12:34]
Karen Howe
Sam Altman didn't agree to interview for the book. So what I ended up doing was just listening to hours and hours and hours and hours of footage, much of him talking in various different settings over the years.
- [12:46]
Bridget Todd
Just kidding.
- [12:47]
Karen Howe
That's just my opinion, which, which ended up being actually a really great exercise because I realized that, first of all, that he. He shifts, you know, like what he says over the years changes a lot because he will say what. What needs, what he thinks his audience needs to hear in that moment. And that will fluctuate based on, you know, the zeitgeist, the moment. But also I realized that he uses very squishy language, even while taking a definitive tone to say the things that he's saying. So you'll see him say statements like, we believe that a lot of people are going to like this. And like, and. And. And very soon there will be more people that like this, you know, like, like he uses things that are unquantifiable. Like a lot of very soon. Yeah, he, he rarely ever says anything like majority, anything that could even have some measurable. Oh, majority means 51%. So I can actually like, hold you to that number. Like, he never uses those terms. He. And he never uses specific values. He only ever uses these, like, squishy things that are in the eye of the beholder. And I think it' a coincidence then that like, OpenAI then also became like an entity that was viewed by different people based on, you know, the eye of the beholder. It's kind of how he operates.
- [14:26]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
I can't help but feel it's an analogy for how chatbots talk with people of, you know, sort of painting like a zeitgeisty picture but not actually saying anything with like, specific nouns or verbs.
- [14:40]
Karen Howe
Yes. A lot of people have drawn this analogy between how Sam Albin operates and how ChatGPT is designed.
- [14:49]
Bridget Todd
I definitely find myself getting caught in a trap of saying, is this AI good or is this AI bad? And you actually offer a much more helpful way to think about that. Does this fortify or does this dismantle empire? And I'm curious how you got to that framework because it is so helpful.
- [15:08]
Karen Howe
Yeah, this is based on. I have a good friend of mine who's a researcher who graduated from Stanford, Rhea Kalluri. And she gave this really amazing talk in 2019 that basically articulated and framed this question. It was a talk that was given at NeurIPS, the neural information Processing Systems Conference, which is the largest AI research conference that happens every year. Like 15,000 researchers descend. AI researchers descend on one city and take over the city for a week. And she was giving this keynote at Queer in AI, which is this organization that of, of AI researchers and AI professionals that identify as queer and want to find community and also reflect their queerness in their work. And the key, like in her keynote she said, you know, it's so hard as an a, as a queer AI researcher, like she was talking with like everyone in the room, like, as queer AI researchers. It's so hard sometimes to align like your work with your identity because you're taught in the AI research world that you should only ever be using your technical mind and you should leave behind anything that suggests that you are also like a person with a body that exists in society. And so even as people within the community feel that there are certain things about AI research that don't feel quite right, like it often can enable surveillance, often can then police queer bodies and things like that, that somehow this, this needs to be separate from, from their mind. And part of the problem she diagnosed was because of this very overly simplistic question of people just asking, like, is AI good or is AI bad? And so her provocation was, this is an impossible question to answer. And that's part of the reason why we just like end up not grappling with this. And we just, when we're an AI researcher, we put on a totally different hat and then we take it off to like exist in society. And the better question is, does this particular AI tool or practice or artifact shift power in ways that consolidate it in the hands of the few or in ways that distribute it in the hands of the many? And once you are more granular about that question, then it becomes a lot easier to figure out, like on a day to day level. And she was talking to AI researchers. But I think this is applicable to literally everyone. Like it becomes more clear on a day to day level, like whether you want to engage in certain types of AI technologies, either as a producer of this technology, like tech companies rope us in as data donors to the training of these AI models, as hosters of their data centers, and so on and so forth, or as a consumer of these technologies. And I, it's, it's a talk that has always stuck with me and a question that's always stuck with me because it just makes it so clear when, for not just AI, any technology, like whether like I personally want to engage with it or not, or like whether other people should be engaging with a certain technology or not, because it makes like it immediately clarifies the idea of that technology's role in society. Is it ultimately like fortifying democracy or eroding it?
- [18:40]
Bridget Todd
Karen is one of the experts that I spoke to while researching my own audiobook, Love at First Prompt, a project that also took me deep into the world of people using AI for companionship and intimacy. Many of them told me that they felt like AI had genuinely helped them. So how do we hold that alongside everything we know about the risk, the threats to our democracy, our environment and beyond?
- [19:06]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
In this audio project, we've talked with a lot of people who, individuals who personally get a lot of value from their chatbot companions in terms of self reflection, emotional support, overcoming interpersonal challenges with other humans in their life and in other areas. And it's, it's really interesting to think about the distinction between those individual benefits that they feel and then the societal impacts and what it means for democracy. I guess, you know, given everything that, that you know about these systems and how they're built and who profits, how do you, how do you think about that? You know, sort of balancing those, those different levels of people who feel that they are individually benefit and individually benefiting from sharing these intimate parts of their lives versus the sort of more societal level impacts to privacy, democracy, power, all of that.
- [20:03]
Karen Howe
Yeah, I guess I wouldn't even frame it as a trade off of like the individual benefiting, but then society having these, these negative externalities, like I think the individual themselves is also potentially going to have negative impacts from their actions as well. Like in the short term, when people are developing relationships with these chatbots and then divulging super intimate information, maybe they do in moment feel like they gained something important from that specific interaction, but they also lost extraordinary amount of privacy in that moment that could in the long run come back to bite them. You know, like one of the things that I think is very distinctive about these chatbots versus about something like Google Search is like. In the past, people were not uploading their medical files to Google Search, but they do just seamlessly upload their medical files to ChatGPT, thinking that this is, this is going to ultimately give them some benefit in the short term. And there's not really like any guardrails right now for where that information is going to go. I mean, company like and in fact OpenAI and Anthropic very recently rolled out healthcare features to continue to encourage people to upload this stuff. And they say in their advertisements this is going to be a place for you to upload all of your medical records to our platforms. And for now they say we do not use any of this information for training. We're going to secure it in a different way than your other chat conversations. But this is completely based on like trust in these companies and who's to say for that user in the long run how those policies might change and then suddenly all of the intimate information that they've provided is used against them.
- [21:56]
Bridget Todd
Let's take a quick break.
- [22:02]
Inner Balance Advertiser
If you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance. The first all in one prescription strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again.
- [22:32]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
That's innerbalance.com Every business has an ambition. PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on the future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business. PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations. Thy ticket lady, Jennifer of Coolidge. Well, many thanks, good sir. Here is my Discover card. They accept Discover at Renaissance fairs?
- [23:14]
Bridget Todd
Yeah, they do here.
- [23:16]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
Discover is accepted at the places I love to shop. Get it with the times.
- [23:21]
Bridget Todd
With the times.
- [23:22]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
You're playing the loot. Yeah, and it sounds pretty good, right?
- [23:27]
Karen Howe
Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.
- [23:34]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Shake it up with vital proteins collagen and protein shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With 0 grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital.
- [24:03]
Jacob Goldstein
Learn more@vitalproteins.com this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive. And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D o o dot com. That's O d o o dot com.
- [24:55]
Bridget Todd
And we're back. Earlier this year, OpenAI announced they'd be rolling out ChatGPT Health, a new service that would encourage people to upload their medical records and create an ecosystem for other health apps like fitness trackers. To interface with it. OpenAI is hyping this up as a one stop shop for integrating all data about your health. According to the company, more than 40 million people ask ChatGPT a healthcare related question every single day, which amounts to more than 5% of all global messages on the platform. So why not create a dedicated tab for people's health questions and health needs? What could go wrong, right? I saw this woman on Threads talking about how she, she had screenshotted a message she had gotten from her doctor, her cancer doctor. That was just this dashed off sentence, right? It was like, oh, scans came back, let's discuss next appointment. And she was like, oh, my next appointment is in three months. Then it was the image that she had, she had put that put her scans into ChatGPT. And ChatGPT was like, I'm really sorry you're dealing with this. This can be really scary. I think your tests indicate da, da da. And I thought, boy, is this company really exploiting people who are fearful or vulnerable or scared or, you know, up against navigating a healthcare system that can sometimes be awful. Are there ways that that tech companies are offering people something Saying, this is going to be helpful for you. And really they're just benefiting from a bad system we're all trying to navigate.
- [26:33]
Karen Howe
I've been thinking about this a lot with the rolling out of the healthcare features in particular, because I've talked with so many people who have had exactly this experience. Like, they get a diagnosis for themselves or for a loved one, and all of a sudden, like, everything feels really overwhelming. And interestingly, I almost exclusively hear this among Americans, this experience. So 100. Like, it's also tied to the fact that, like, we have this healthcare system that is just impenetrable and horrible to navigate and makes you feel really isolated and makes you, like, start worrying about your finances and everything. And there is, like, something to be said that, like, in this moment of great need, there suddenly is this tool that appears that, like, helps you sort through that and helps you navigate that. And, and like, there's. I, I kind of could never say that these people should not be using a tool that's. That could make such a convoluted process extremely, at least a little bit more helpful and navigable. But 100%, like, these companies know that's exactly what's happening. Like, they are kind of tapping into these moments of vulnerability to get you to develop more dependence on their tools. And not just dependence in terms of, like, you know, just like the practical dependence, but like, emotional dependence as well. Right. Like, they specifically design the tools to, to pepper in those comments. Like, oh, this is so hard. Like, let me, let me help you with that. Let me. I'm here for you. What. You know, and like, those are all design decisions that they layer in to make this a holistic part of the experience. So I think that the way that I kind of fall on this issue is that, like, it's not that these tools shouldn't exist, and clearly because the numbers show that, like, people. Just like, there are a lot of people that use these tools in this way. So it's to me, like, the solution is we should have these tools, but they need to be developed safely. And part of this is going to be that they have to be regulated. Like most of the medical system and most ways that people interface with the healthcare system in general are heavily regulated. Like, the medications that you take every time you go to the doctor, like, all of your exchanges are protected by the law. And this is like a weird moment in which suddenly these companies are offering many of the same services, but without any of the protections. And they're, of course, also, at the same time, like, lobbying against getting those protections implement. But yeah, that's like, to me, the healthy balance that we should be trying to move towards is that we have these tools available for people to help them when they, they desperately need it, but also in a way that is safe, where people are also not getting harmed along the way.
- [29:40]
Bridget Todd
That's such a good point, right? That so much of the healthcare industry and the way that we experience it is heavily regulated. And now all of a sudden we've got these completely unregulated AI companies and products they make flooding that space. Like you said, people's high level of interest using AI to help manage their health care needs does suggest that it might be filling a need that people have for more information about their health, more support. But there are obviously so many huge risks, risks to privacy, risks of getting bad or just flat out incorrect or even dangerous advice, risks of being exploited during a vulnerable moment, you know, just to name a few. So I'm curious, in your mind, what would a better system look like? Like, how should regulators and lawmakers be thinking of the role of AI in healthcare?
- [30:26]
Karen Howe
The way that I think about it is like, first and foremost, we should be thinking much more broadly about what constitutes AI regulation. I think most of the time when people think about AI regulation, they're imagining just regulating the applications once AI is developed and how it's allowed to be used. I think that AI regulation needs to be brought in to also think about how a, like, what kinds of AI should be created in the first place. So that means, like, we should be having more regulation on the data that's allowed to go into these AI models on where data centers get developed for training these models. How much energy and water are they allowed to use and how much are they allowed to hike up the utility prices of customers while they're training these models? And I also think that, that we should be regulating the applications and that, you know, if they're going to enter into the healthcare industry and people are going to start using these tools as a therapist, I mean, usually a human therapist has to get licensed by a body and has to be recognized as actually able to practice therapy. And so that's another piece of like, for that specific industry. If, if AI companies are going to position their products as therapists, they should be regulated just, or they should, they should be licensed just as human therapists are licensed. So it really does, I think, depend, case by case, on which, you know, the, the vast facet faces of AI that we're talking about. But one of the things That I think would cut across like every, just as a baseline we should be thinking about when it comes to AI regulation is we just generally need more transparency across the entire AHF element and deployment supply chain. Like we currently don't know what data is being used to train these models. We currently don't know the energy footprint of these data centers. We often don't know when you're going to the doctor's office whether or not AI is actually being used on you. Because there aren't super robust disclosure laws where doctors or anyone who's using AI has to just disclose that they are doing so on the person that they're using it on. We also don't know like if you're at the doctor's office and they're using a specific AI application, what's actually running in the background. Because there's applications and then there's the models that power them. And it could turn out that that model is run by Google or by Microsoft or by Amazon or whatever it is and you currently don't have control over that as a patient or just as a person existing in society and in general as like the first step for improving the rights of users and citizens engaging in an AI enabled society, like transparency is number one, when you
- [33:31]
Bridget Todd
put it that way. It is really crazy that we're tolerating this. Like, I like it is if, if, if we were to go back in time 20 years and you were to explain to me what would be commonplace, just the way that you just did, I would say no, that we wouldn't know, we wouldn't stand for that, nobody would volunteer or sign up for that. I don't know. Sometimes when I hear what these tech, the way that these tech companies are framing that they'll be in the most intimate aspects of our lives and we would get no transparency into way that, that, into the way that, that shows up and what that really looks like and means. I, it's, it blows my mind. Like it's, it's really hard for me to believe that we have signed up for this and that there's people who were like, oh, and it's going to be great for you. We were actually going to love it.
- [34:14]
Karen Howe
Yeah, I mean I, I think this is one of the things that like this didn't happen overnight. Right. Like Silicon Valley in general over the last 10 years very slowly built up our tolerance for this situation by building this narrative that like privacy is over and everyone would rather trade their privacy for convenience and by making us accustomed to the idea that like we don't have any control over the, the fundamental building blocks of our digital lives anymore. Like the things that give us information, the algorithms that sort through our news feeds. And so I think the AI conversation is being installed on already, like a very solid foundation of 10 years of silicon Valley just eroding away our rights and making us. It's like a frog in a boiling pot metaphor.
- [35:10]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. You know, you open the book with this stunning quote from Sam Altman, I think his blog, where he essentially says that the best way to motivate people is to build a religion, and the best way to do that is to start a company. And first of all, I feel like starting with that quote is like, okay, just so here's where we're at. Like we're starting with him talking about how he wants to start a religion. But I think when you really parse through what that means and you consider that OpenAI is building tools that people use in these intimate parts of their life now for things like emotional support, intimate companionship, therapy, sex, all of that stuff.
- [35:44]
Karen Howe
Stuff.
- [35:45]
Bridget Todd
They're using these tools in moments of spiritual or existential need and vulnerability. What does it mean that they're being built and led by somebody who, as you point out, will use this like, mission driven language as a strategic tool as opposed to like a genuine commitment. What does it mean that somebody is at the helm of all of these intimate things? Who? You know, there are plenty of concerns about his honesty and his, his approaches to safety. Like, what do we do with that?
- [36:16]
Karen Howe
I think for me, there's an even bigger meta question which is just like, what does it mean that we allow one individual, regardless of their character, to do all these things and have access to all these things and have like a window, an intimate window into so many people's lives? Like, even if we were to swap out Sam Altman for someone else, I still don't think think this setup is okay. Right? Like there's just one person or a small group of people that are running these companies and they can make 60 decisions in an hour. That fundamentally changes how billions of people are engaging with their technologies on a day to day basis, which then affects their lives and their work and their schools and their health care. And you know, it just like, it's like that is just inherently unsound, that is inherently an undemocratic setup. And we cannot have, we, we cannot be talking about, you know, existing in a democratic society where everyone has, is supposed to have agency and control over their future decisions and be able to Collectively self govern, when in, in reality, governance is just happening by a tiny group of people.
- [37:31]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah. I really appreciate how much your writing connects with democracy. I feel like a lot of the, the experts that we've talked with about this are experts in different fields, but they've been, you know, it's been a lot of discussion about. A lot of the discussions we've had have been about intimacy and relationships. But as you point out, I think democracy and the implications for democracy of this, these rising AI companies is enormous. Do you, do you view that, you know, democracy as like a casualty of these companies building, building empires? Or do you think it's sort of part and parcel of the same thing undermining democracy? And in, you know, as part of this process of consolidating power and money?
- [38:27]
Karen Howe
I think it's kind of a little bit of both. I mean, there's certain players in Silicon Valley that have been extremely explicit about how they just don't believe in democracy and think that we need to move to a different way of organizing society. Like, Peter Thiel has said this very explicitly. He thinks that democracy is incompatible with like a good society. And also there are other people that I think have, who have not been so explicit about their desire to undermine democracy, but more in their quest for, you know, their quest for wanting to scale monopolistic companies, their quest for wanting to build an AI like God, their quest for wanting to become like a great man of history. Like in that journey. Yes. Democracy also then becomes a casualty because in order to do those things, what they're suggesting is consuming all of the resources in the world and undermining everyone's agency to get there. So that. Yeah. So you could say that maybe therefore there's not actually a difference whether or not they intended explicitly to undermine democracy or not. Like, that's the final destination of what they, what their agendas are.
- [39:50]
Bridget Todd
Yeah. To that point, you've talked about how OpenAI, their core insight is just the concept of more. More data, more resources. But when I think about them pivoting more into like an intimacy or emotional support space, which I know that they're aware that that's how people are using their products. It seems like those are spaces that require the opposite of more Right. Context, care, specificity, nuance. These things that are, that are so kind of, they're, they're at odds with the concept of just like more and more and more all the time. Is there a tension there?
- [40:25]
Karen Howe
It's funny because I don't think from the AI researchers perspective, there's a tension. They would say that in order to have more, to deliver more high context care via chatbot, they just need more and more and more and more of your intimate data. So, so like for them it's not attention and that's, that's why they are motivated to collect more and more and more of this stuff. But yeah, I mean, like to me what the tension is is that there is a certain worldview that undergirds the development of these systems that suggests that everything in our existence can ultimately be quantified through data and can ultimately be mediated through technical systems. And that worldview really devalues human to human interaction, really devalues the soft social, emotional element of relationships and society. And that is the tension for me is like they're trying to suggest that there will be a, an AI God that they can developed purely through quantitative methods, purely through consuming data in technical systems that is somehow going to manage to replace all of the facets of emotional, social, human relationships that have, you know, been driving society for millennia.
- [42:01]
Bridget Todd
And this just goes back to my ultimate personal orientation around tech, which is that I think that it is being led and driven by people who devalue emotional labor. You know, soft skills. Like we, like, we've had conversations for a really long time about how the only thing that matters are these like hard skills, quantifiable skills. And these are people who are trying, who we're meant to trust, are going to build the kind of world that we want to live in using their technology, technology who have never valued these things and that they're building technology that sort of argues that you don't even really need them when we know that we do need care work and emotional work, it's work that they devalue and do not respect. So why then would I put my trust in them to use technology to build a kind of world that anybody might want to actually live in?
- [42:51]
Karen Howe
Yeah, and the thing is like they also actually value these things without explicitly recognize, like they actually value it more than they articulate. Because for example, all of these tech companies have policies that require their employees to come into the office. Like why would you require your employees to be in the same room with one another working face to face, unless you believed that there is genuine value to that interaction that you could not get from being remote? I mean, it's like kind of like the greatest irony is that, that they actually design their companies and the way that they work and, and, and the way that they make decisions in their lives in direct opposition to the things that they say. And I think it also, you know, like that new the Neurips conference that I was talking about like 15, 000 people descending into one city just to have face to face time with one another. And these are the people that are building these technologies that they then suggest will be replacing all of that human interaction. So yeah, it's interesting. I think it's one of those situations where you have to like see what they do rather than listen to what they say.
- [44:11]
Bridget Todd
More after a quick break.
- [44:18]
Inner Balance Advertiser
If you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance, the first all in one prescription strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oester replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again.
- [44:47]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
That's innerbalance.com Every business has an ambition. PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with access to business loans so you can expand and hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. Your customers can pay all the ways they want today with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on the future. Future when you need a partner trusted by millions. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations. Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?
- [45:23]
Bridget Todd
Right? And the best part?
- [45:24]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
They accept Discover. Accept Discover in a little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer. Oh yeah, huh?
- [45:31]
Karen Howe
Discover is accepted where I like to shop.
- [45:33]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
Come on, baby, get with the time.
- [45:36]
Karen Howe
Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants.
- [45:39]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
These are making a comeback, I think.
- [45:43]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Discover is accepted at 99% of places
- [45:45]
Karen Howe
that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.
- [45:50]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Shake it up with vital proteins, collagen and protein shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With 0 grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital.
- [46:19]
Jacob Goldstein
Learn more@vitalproteins.com this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies. It's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo D o o dot com. That's O d o o dot com.
- [47:12]
Bridget Todd
Let's get right back into it.
- [47:15]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So Altman has talked a lot about the movie her. And you know, you mentioned that you listened to so much footage of him talking. So you're probably one of the world's foremost experts in how much he has talked about that movie. Like he's invoked it many times to describe what he thinks ChatGPT could be. But then in recent times has seemingly kind of walked back the extent to which he wants ChatGPT to be involved in intimate relationships. But then they roll out erotic content. And so what do you think explains this whiplash?
- [47:55]
Karen Howe
At the end of the day, OpenAI is now a business. So even as it is still motivated very much ideologically by a quest to build their so called artificial general intelligence, they also just need to make money now and they are losing an extraordinary amount of right now. The last figure that I saw was they had committed to $1.4 trillion of debt for building out the data center infrastructure that they need for training and delivering the next generations of their GPT models. So they're trying everything to monetize in order to plug that hole. That's why they're rolling out ads, that's why they launched a whole slew of different products last year like a new web browser and agents. And they're trying shopping, integrated shopping experience into chat GPT. They are, they, they've announced that they are going to build some kind of hardware device. They're just spraying the market with various different ideas and a core part of being able to then make all, all of these into, into revenue generation engines is users. They need to continue having more users and they need to have those users spend more time on the platform. And the truth is OpenAI is actually losing market share right now because there are other competitors like anthropic, like Google that are starting to eat their lunch. And so as they experience all of these pressures from competitors and they experience just like the dire need for more Cash flow. They keep flip flopping on decisions to try and figure out what is going to make their product more engaging, more sticky and more addictive.
- [49:57]
Bridget Todd
To that end, I mean, you've talked about how AI is essentially showing us that like surveillance capitalism moving into its most extreme form. And as I've been reporting my own book, like, I'm curious now that we're at a place where it's in people's emotional lives, their relationships, their mental health struggles, they're putting ads in the ChatGPT. Have we just like morphed into a, into like, I would say final form, But I don't think it will be the final form of just the most extreme version of AI enabled surveillance capitalism.
- [50:30]
Karen Howe
Pretty much. I mean, you see this all the time with the announcements that companies are making where like over the last year, maybe year and a half, there were these slew of announcements from various companies where they just said, we will now be training on your data unless you opt out. Like, Zoom made an announcement saying, we're now going to train on your video calls. Of course there was a huge backlash, so that didn't end up happening. But then like Facebook announced, oh, we're changing all of our settings, so we're going to train on everything now, including your public Instagram posts. LinkedIn made that announcement, like, we're going to train on your LinkedIn posts and unless you opt out. And like that is to me the, the most obvious sign of this surveillance capitalism creep. Like before, they were already monetizing off of the data that we were leaving on their, these digital trails that we were leaving online. But now they're just becoming like so much more explicit about like any last vestige of data that they have not yet used and trained, like fed into their models and tried to like wring money out of, they are now grabbing. And it has now become incumbent on the user to track all of these updates and then go into the settings and like find them and turn them all off. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for the much broader expansion of surveillance capitalism that's happening beneath the surface now.
- [52:01]
Bridget Todd
I see AI is this inherently extractive dynamic where everything is being taken, whether it's our data, our privacy. And I just feel like that in some ways is fundamentally at odds with then trusting those same companies to automate care, automate connection, automate intimacy. And one of the ways that I really see that is in some of the folks that you've interviewed, like content moderators in Kenya who, who suffered like pretty intense Psychological harm filtering out violent content. And so it's just hard for me not to see this as a fundamentally extractive, exploitative dynamic, but then a dynamic where people are telling us, oh, you're going to be able to trust this to, you know, create a better world. How can you create a better world with a tool that fundamentally might have exploitation and extraction at the heart?
- [52:55]
Karen Howe
Part one of my theories for why these companies have been so successful this year is, is because they have very successfully hid a lot of the exploitation and extraction. Like the ind, you know, the AI industry in general or the tech industry in general, they use a lot of euphemisms in the way that they talk about AI and, and what they're building. You know, like data centers are the cloud. It's like an ethereal thing that exists in the sky. Not, not giant sweaty computers that are sucking up an enormous amount of energy. And they talk about how autonomous their agents and their models are, not actually acknowledging the fact that it's built on the backs of tens of thousands of contract workers that live in places like Kenya. And so, yeah, like I, I think they create this veneer of magic, of mysticism, of the, the fact that this, this, this technology somehow falls from the heavens and that therefore then benefit from, from the fact that a lot of consumers just don't realize when they're engaging with these. Like they just see the kind of clean interface and those consumers just evaluate the technology based on, oh, like that was helpful. So like, let me use it again without actually considering all of the things that went into building the technology that then reveal the logic of the industry and what that industry will, then how that industry will continue to apply that logic to your data and your life.
- [54:28]
Bridget Todd
Do you think that this is just another iteration of wealthier countries using, because there are so many examples, like the best fashion industry or there are just so many examples of industries where we're just trained in the west to just take and use and not think about what the labor and the people that went into this thing that we are taking and using. So I'm, I'm curious when it comes to how some of the use cases that people are using AI for, is this the same thing where people are just taking and using without thinking about who's on the other end doing the labor?
- [55:02]
Karen Howe
Yeah, 100%. I think AI, the AI industry does engage in a very, it's part of, it's part of the, a long history of, of exploitation extraction of many different industries. But I think the difference is that with something like fashion or with food, it's much more obvious to the consumer that there is a supply chain that exists because it is a physical object that you hold in your hand. And so you know that at some point there were materials that were fed into building this object and there were people involved in laboring to create this object. Whereas AI as a digital thing, like a lot of people still don't have that connection that this is, this digital thing actually exists physically in the world and also requires human labor. And I think the other thing is like, with something like fashion, you know, people are, the industry is not telling you that they are creating God. They're not tell, they're not selling you this over the top religious narrative about why you need to buy their clothing. And that's what the AI industry is doing, right? Like, they are, they are not just hiding the exploitation extraction, but they're also packaging it in this, like, this like crazy rhetoric where they say that if you engage and allow them to build these tools, they're not just tools, in fact, that they're going to bring us Civilization 2.0, solve all of our problems, bring abundance to the whole world, and everything is going to be amazing. And I think that then accelerates the exploitation and extraction because it justifies it. So even when the exploitation or the extraction is revealed, the people who benefit from this like magical or, or want to benefit from this magical oracle that exists at the end of the journey are willing to then accept the fact that, that maybe there is some exploitation extraction that needs to happen along the way.
- [57:10]
Bridget Todd
That's such a good way to put it. And you know, like, I may buy fast fashion from Xi'. An. The head of Xi' an is not on television talking about why I need to be personally invested in him being successful, like the, the empire that he's building. I'm not. It's, it's such a good point that, like, it's kind of crazy when you think about it.
- [57:31]
Karen Howe
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, it's really nuts. And I, I think sometimes I use this analogy that like, if we were like back in the Middle Ages and someone knocked on your door and was like, I'm going to sell you a potion that can cure all of your problems, but it's just going to cost everything you've ever owned, including your firstborn child, you would be like, this is a scam. Like, no. And that's what these companies do. And, and yet like everyone was, is like, okay, take my firstborn child and there's just something about like the, the modernity and the sexiness and like the advanced technical aspect of AI that makes it much harder to recognize that that's actually like what these companies are saying to us.
- [58:25]
Bridget Todd
Karen, Empire of AI has been such a huge success. You are now launching the Interface of BBC. Tell us how that came about and I'm curious if it's a natural progression of the work that you explored in your book.
- [58:38]
Karen Howe
Yeah. So the Interface is a podcast that is going to be a weekly show with me and two other hosts, Thomas Jermaine and Nikki Wolfe, both also longtime tech investigative reporters. And we are going to be talking each week about different topics that intersect with tech, but not are not exclusively about tech. Because our thesis is that tech is the dominant driving force that's rewiring your world. And in order to really understand all the things that are happening in the world, whether it's politics, geopolitics, the environment, or just the crazy things happening on your phone, like you have to have a grasp of technology. And we want to make this show as broad as possible. It's not meant for, for just people that love tech or just people that understand tech. Like we really, really want everyone to feel like this is a show for them. And it very much is an extension of the work that I was, that I did with Empire of AI. A lot of my thesis in Empire of AI is twofold. One, that like, we need to hold these tech companies accountable by revealing the degree of power that they have within our lives. But secondly, that there is opportunity to change this, that actually every single individual has agency to shape the way that technology is going to be developed in the future. And so this is going to be a huge theme of the show where we really, our goal is to provide people with that sense of agency, with that the, the feeling of being informed such that they can then make better choices that work for them and for their lives and help them rehabilitate their tech, their relationship with technology. Because at the end of the day, I think a lot of people in this moment have frustrating relationships with their technology. They are frustrated that they're doom scrolling all the time. They are worried about their kids and their experiences online and they feel this kind of restlessness or this like hopelessness in the face of all of that. And we really want to return back that sense of control in people's lives.
- [60:54]
Bridget Todd
I cannot wait to listen. This is sort of the orientation that I feel in tech as well, that tech is for so long it's sort of been like, oh, tech is this thing. And then all the other things are over here. And then if you don't think of yourself as a techie, you tune out. You feel like, oh, what do I know about this? I'm no engineer. Meanwhile, technology intersects pretty much every issue that plays out in our lives, whether it's gender, justice, racial justice, the environment. Like, all of these issues are also tech issues. And you, they impact and intersect with tech so directly that we have to start telling a truer story about how that shows up and, and help people feel like they do have that agency that I think is so important.
- [61:31]
Karen Howe
Absolutely. Yeah. This is like a huge, huge core driving thesis for me is like, we 100% have. Have agency. And that it's like the, the number one way that we can all kind of resist the narratives that Silicon Valley has fed us is by reclaiming that agency.
- [61:48]
Bridget Todd
How can folks find the interface?
- [61:51]
Karen Howe
It will be available everywhere that people listen to their podcasts. It will also be a visualized podcast. So we're going to be posting videos on YouTube and so, yeah, people can follow us across all those different platforms as well as each of the three hosts individually on our social media platforms.
- [62:09]
Bridget Todd
Y' all please follow Karen. She is one of the most fascinating people on the fascinating people on the planet. My producer Mike and I were. Every other comment in the doc is like, oh, she's too interesting. Oh, she's so like, everything you say, I'm like, oh, we could ask a million different follow ups. So truly, thank you for your work. We're such huge fans, y'.
- [62:26]
Inner Balance Advertiser
All.
- [62:26]
Bridget Todd
Please listen to this podcast. It's gonna be a banger.
- [62:29]
Karen Howe
Thank you so much, Bridget. And thank you so much, Mike. It was really awesome to speak with you both.
- [62:39]
Bridget Todd
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just wanna say hi. You can reach us@helloangodi.com youm can also find trans scripts for Today's episode@tecnote.com There are no Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [63:23]
Inner Balance Advertiser
If you're feeling off fatigue, mood changes, skin shifts, yet your labs say everything's normal. You're not alone. Meet Oestra from Inner Balance. The first all in one prescription strength bioidentical hormone cream that's natural and effective and only takes one drop, 10 seconds a day. Oestra replaces five to six products women typically use to treat symptoms and is third party tested to ensure the highest quality. Visit innerbalance.com today to start feeling like yourself again.
- [63:53]
Karen Howe
That's innerbalance.com with the Venmo Debit card.
- [63:57]
Bridget Todd
A taco in one hand and ordering
- [63:59]
Karen Howe
a ride in the other means you're stacking your rewards.
- [64:02]
Bridget Todd
Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when
- [64:07]
Karen Howe
you pay with your Venmo debit card.
- [64:09]
Bridget Todd
From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and
- [64:11]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
more, pick a bundle with your go
- [64:12]
Bridget Todd
tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Do more stash get more cash Venmo Stash Bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms at Venmo Me stash terms
- [64:21]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
max $100 cash back per month when
- [64:24]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [64:53]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Did you know you can get your prep for free?
- [64:55]
Bridget Todd
Mista provides 100% free prep and doxy
- [64:58]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
pep prescribed online and delivered right to your door discreetly. Whether you have Insurance or not, mistr's got you covered in three easy steps. 1. Sign up@mistr.com 2.
- [65:11]
Karen Howe
Consult with a doctor online.
- [65:13]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
3. Complete your at home test kit and then your prep and Doxy pep come right to your door. No doctor's office, no needles, no paperwork. Easy judgment. Free and totally online. Head to mistr.com and get started today.
- [65:29]
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Shake it up with vital proteins, Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just ate. Age gracefully. You age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital. Learn more@vitalproteins.com this is an I Heart Podcast.
- [66:03]
Discover/PayPal Advertiser
Guaranteed human.