I am reading ‘Empire of AI’ — thoughts (8)

I’ve just finished reading, and am now rereading, Empire of AI by Karen Hao. I picked it up partly out of curiosity, but mostly because I’m in a phase of shaping my own philosophies around scaling technology, especially AI. This matters deeply to me because I’ve taken on the long-term project of building KWUO, a digital tool for preserving Igbo language. We eventually plan to integrate elements like machine learning, voice-to-text, and speech recognition.

KWUO is, for me, at least a decade-long commitment. But I’m very hesitant to build on the existing AI infrastructure for MANY reasons.

Books like Empire of AI are super important because they illuminate both the immediate and long-term damage the current AI systems are causing; environmentally, socially, and ethically. They challenge us to think differently. I believe there are better ways to build this technology, and my interest lies in understanding what those alternatives might be, no matter how long it takes.

My hope is to eventually apply those better frameworks to support the preservation of indigenous knowledge systems — in my case, Igbo language.

I’d love to read more books like this. If you stumble across this post and have recommendations (books or articles) on more ethical or sustainable approaches to building AI, please send them my way, I will genuinely look into them.

And honestly, everyone — EVERYONE — should read this book or at least watch some of Karen Hao’s interviews on YouTube. Regardless of whether or not you’re building AI tools, or simply using the internet, the insights in this book are very important.

We all need to understand the true cost of the technologies we rely on, and we must push ourselves to imagine and build better ways forward.