005. 'Everyone do a data center story' with Karen Hao

For this episode, we talk to award-winning journalist Karen Hao about her path from working in the tech industry to critical tech reporting; her efforts to track down the environmental impacts of AI and data centers; her latest reporting on Microsoft's AI- and cloud-based entanglement with the fossil fuel industry; her current book project on OpenAI; and her work training other journalists to cover the tech industry critically for their own communities (recorded in October 2024).

Karen's reporting discussed in this episode:
"Microsoft's Hypocrisy on AI," The Atlantic (September 2024)
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/microsoft-ai-oil-contracts/679804/

"AI Is Taking Water From the Desert," The Atlantic (March 2024)
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/ai-water-climate-microsoft/677602/

"Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes," MIT Tech Review (June 2019)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/06/239031/training-a-single-ai-model-can-emit-as-much-carbon-as-five-cars-in-their-lifetimes/