The Dublin Book Club Meetup Group Monthly Meetup

Hi there,
Here are the books for the May 19th meetup. And remember, you don't have to read both books! Enjoy, and see you on the 19th of May!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE LOCATION HAS MOVED FROM THE BLEEDING HORSE TO JIMMY RABBITTE AT 87 LOWER CAMDEN STREET.

Note: If these books are difficult to find in bookshops, try online (e.g.: Amazon.co.uk, kennys.ie, easons.com, bookdepository.com to name a few).

AS THIS GROUP DOES NOT TAKE ONLINE PAYMENTS, EVERYONE WILL SHOW AS 'UNPAID'. PLEASE IGNORE.

1. Empire of AI - Karen Hao
An eye-opening account of the tech arms race shaping out planet, from an award-winning journalist and AI insider to the world of Sam Altman and OpenAI
When longtime AI expert and 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, it was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely market forces.
But the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that it requires an unprecedented amount of proprietary resources: the ‘compute’ power of scarce high-end chips, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans on the ground ‘cleaning it up’ for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the need for energy and water underlying everything. We have entered a new, ominous age of empire with OpenAI setting a breakneck pace, as a small group of the most valuable companies in human history try to chase it down.
In exhilarating prose and with unparalleled access to those closest to Sam Altman, Hao recounts the meteoric rise of OpenAI and shows us the sinister impact that this industry is having on society.

2. Leonard and Hungry Paul – Ronan Hession
Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two friends who ordinarily would remain uncelebrated. It finds a value and specialness in them that is not immediately apparent and prompts the idea that maybe we could learn from the people that we overlook in life. Leonard and Hungry Paul change the world differently to the rest of us: we try and change it by effort and force; they change it by discovering the small things they can do well and offering them to others.
Séamus