By Irving Díaz Medorio — June 2026
The Question That Kept Me Up at Night
A few months ago, Empire of AI by Karen Hao fell into my hands. I started reading out of curiosity and ended up underlining almost every page. Not because it was teaching me something I didn't know — but because it was putting into words what I'd been feeling for years: that artificial intelligence was being built wrong. Not because of a technical failure. Because of a human choice.
Hao traces how AI became a tool of centralized power — not because the technology demanded it, but because the incentives pushed it there. Attention algorithms that maximize engagement over truth. Cloud dependencies that turn users into products. Model providers that can revoke your access, change the behavior, or shut down the service at any moment.
The book asks a question that most of the industry has avoided: What would AI look like if it was designed to serve the individual instead of the corporation?
