OpenAI’s mythology, Meta’s secret, and Microsoft’s hypocrisy.

Hi, I’m Charley, and this is Untangled, a newsletter about our sociotechnical world, and how to change it.

• Last week, I argued that the shared reality that the U.S. has long glorified was predominantly white and male, and historically, fragmentation has proven to be a good thing.

• I launched my new course, Sociotechnical Systems Change in Practice. The first cohort will take place on January 11 and 12, and you can sign up here. (As you’ll see, I’ve decided to offer a free 1:1 coaching session to all participants following the course.)

• Untangled is 40 percent off at the moment, and I partnered with Anya Kamenetz to offer you her great newsletter The Golden Hour for free! Check out her latest on how to talk to your kids about the election. Signing up for Untangled right now means you’ll get $140 in value for $54.

This week, I’m sharing my conversation with Karen Hao, an award-winning writer covering artificial intelligence for The Atlantic. We discuss:

• Karen’s investigation into Microsoft’s hypocrisy on AI and climate change.

• How OpenAI’s mythology reminds Karen of Dune. (I can’t stop thinking about the connection after Karen made it.)

• How Meta uses shell companies to hide from community scrutiny when building new data centers.

• How AI discourse should change and what Karen is doing to train journalists on how to report on AI.

• How to shift power within tech companies. Employee organizing? Community advocacy? Reporting that rejects narratives premised on future promises and innovation for its own sake? Yes.

Reflections on the last week

I interviewed Karen on the morning of the election. I hesitated to share the episode this Sunday but ultimately decided to release it because it’s a conversation about big, structural problems, and what we can do about them. The election results affirm for me the pivot I announced a few weeks ago. Namely, we can’t solve existing problems or fix broken institutions such that they return us to the status quo. We’re (still!) not going back. We have to transform existing sociotechnical systems as we address the rot that lies beneath. We must imagine alternative futures and align our individual and collective actions to them. We have to live these futures today, and then tomorrow.

One day at a time,

Charley