An Evening with Karen Hao

UVA’s Digital Technology for Democracy Lab, The Sloane Lab, and the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences present “An Evening with Karen Hao” at Old Cabell Hall. This free event is open to the public - please reserve your seats by registering.

In Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (Penguin Press, 2025), Karen Hao, a leading tech journalist and frequent contributor to The Atlantic, tells the behind-the-scenes story of how a cadre of the most powerful companies in human history is reshaping the world in its image. The first journalist to ever profile OpenAI, Karen's insight has been called “excellent and deeply reported” by The New York Times. Empire of AI is a page-turning thriller, an “essential work of public education” (Shoshanna Zuboff), and a revelatory portrait of the people controlling AI technology. It is the jaw-dropping story of ambition and ego, hype and speculation, plunder and destruction, politics and labor, and, of course, money and power—a brilliant and deeply necessary look at the industry defining our era, and what the future holds.

Karen was formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering American and Chinese tech companies, and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review. Her work has been cited by Congress, featured in university curriculums, and remade into museum exhibits. She has won numerous accolades, including an American Humanist Media Award and a National Magazine Award for Journalists Under 30. Karen also sits on the AI advisory board of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and leads the Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series, which trains journalists around the world on how to cover artificial intelligence. Prior to journalism, she was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of Google, and she received a B.S. in mechanical engineering and minor in energy studies from MIT.

, Buckner Clay Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, will introduce the event. Ms. Hao’s book lecture will be followed by a conversation with DTD faculty co-lead Assistant Professor of Data Science and Media Studies and incoming Elcan Jefferson Scholars Foundation Distinguished Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Media Studies .

Tickets are free; please register to reserve a seat.

Paid parking is available at the Central Grounds parking garage.

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