An Instant New York Times Bestseller“Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times“Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.” —Vulture“Hao’s reporting inside OpenAI is exceptional, and she’s persuasive in her argument that the public should focus less on A.I.’s putative ‘sentience’ and more on its implications for labor and the environment.” —Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New YorkerFrom a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzyWhen AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations?Spoiler it didn’t. Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.

The LitRPG fantasy smash hit phenomenon and New York Times bestseller, DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL, is now a graphic novel for the very first time! The Apocalypse WILL be televised! You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Getting stuck on a sadistic alien game show with her cat. Join Carl and Princess Donut as they try to survive the end of the world — or just get to the next level of a trap-filled fantasy dungeon. With vibrant art done by Laurel Pursuit to bring action-packed battles to life, join as Carl fights his way through the dungeon in heart-speckled underwear. And of course, the grizzly scenes are only balanced with the incredibly fluffy, wide-eyed stare of its main character, Princess Donut.

Ein ärgerliches Laster, das zwei Menschen zusammenführt, die unterschiedlicher nicht sein könnten... Herr Sasaki, ein überarbeiteter Angestellter, hat am Ende seines stressigen Arbeitsalltags nur einen Lichtblick: Frau Yamada, die immer gut gelaunte Angestellte seines Lieblingssupermarkts. Eines Tages nimmt die Firmenbesprechung besonders viel Zeit in Anspruch und als Herr Sasaki ankommt, ist Frau Yamada bereits in den Feierabend verschwunden. Enttäuscht zückt er seine Zigarettenschachtel und bemerkt eine junge Frau mit Piercings, die hinter dem Laden raucht; der Rest ist Geschichte…

Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death. “Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.” In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family. There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees. But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death. “Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.” In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family. There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees. But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labor, and class, an intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.“IliveinaworldofSusans.Igotnametagsforeveryonewhoworksatthisnailsalon,andoneveryoneisprintedthename "Susan." Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound complexity. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complex power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange. As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning. Told over a single day with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Color confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.

From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labor, and class, an intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.“IliveinaworldofSusans.Igotnametagsforeveryonewhoworksatthisnailsalon,andoneveryoneisprintedthename "Susan." Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound complexity. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complex power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange. As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning. Told over a single day with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Color confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.

In this emotionally rich first memoir, the New York Times bestselling author of True Biz retraces her path out of the hearing world and into the deaf community - and seeks to understand the journeys her own children must take.Sara Nović's early years were filled with music, Bible study, and a strong desire to fit in. But when she failed her school's mandated hearing test, her worldview was thrown into chaos. Desperate not to be marked as different, she told no one, staying in the hearing world for as long as she could by brute force. Eventually unable to ignore the fact that she was deaf, Nović sought out other deaf people and was welcomed into a tight knit community rooted in the beauty and joy of American Sign Language. Nović realized that rather than maintaining the facade of her old life or trying to straddle two worlds, she would need to cultivate a life in the space between. Now the mother of two young sons - one, biological and hearing, the other, adopted and deaf-Nović reflects on her life both before and after parenthood. She's raising her children within the deaf world, offering them things her younger self needed, all the while knowing that as her children grow, their own paths will branch off from hers in ways she cannot fully predict or plan for. Interwoven with Novic's personal story is a remarkable portrait of America through reflections on some of its most complex the rise of the Christian right, the thorny world of international adoption, and above all, the deaf and disabled communities' stubborn survival in the face of persistent oppression. Nović's clear, bold voice is one readers will hold onto, learn from, argue with, and be inspired by, as she asks us to recognize difference as a source of opportunity rather than fear, as a chance to draw families and communities together, and to build something new.

A hilarious, genre-blending speculative novel about rappers and dogs, love and marriage, private detectives, conspiracy theories, nostalgia, and embracing your true self, in a world where the past is different than what you remember. Budding musician Fatty Bratty wakes up in his terrible apartment to a random dog. A dog that acts like he belongs there. Except Bratty doesn’t own a dog. He always wanted to but never did. So maybe this random dog is a sign: screw his parents’ expectations. Forget business school. Instead, over a manic week, he and his best friend write and record their first rap album. They call themselves Mr. Yay. Bratty’s therapist Miriam remembers a different Mr. Yay, the one from the old children’s TV show, the washed-up actor turned first mate who sailed a boat captained by a dog and taught people to be themselves. To just be. But strangely, her husband, Jack, has no memory of the old show at all. As Mr. Yay climbs the charts with his rap songs, Miriam watches her life unravel. Jack is increasingly absent, more secretive, reckless—he hardly resembles the man she married. Their friends start acting weird too: drinking excessively, splurging on motorcycles, quitting their jobs, not washing their hair, harboring raccoons. Jack also doesn’t remember things he should about his relationship with Miriam. But he suspects his memory hole is more than it seems. It’s not just that he’s forgotten the Mr. Yay show—it’s that, on the internet, and according to the studio and half the population, there is no Mr. Yay. There never was. Witty, heartfelt, deeply weird and utterly original, Mr. Yay explores how we grapple with inexplicable sudden shifts in the world around us, and the conspiracy theories and identity crises they birth. If the past we remember has changed, are we who we think we are? Is anyone?