Pioneering AI professor, founder of the Empathetic AI Institute, and author of the award-winning Raising AI — the researcher who invented the web's first global AI translator and laid the groundwork for Google Translate.
Mar 31, 2026, 12:00 PM
ET
The Imitation Economy: What Happens When AI Comes of Age?
The Imitation Economy: What Happens When AI Comes of Age?
Forty years ago at the University of California, Berkeley, De Kai warned that language systems would one day learn at a global scale. He went on to help build some of the earliest large-scale language models, laying groundwork for today’s AI revolution. A decade ago, he experienced what he calls his “Oppenheimer moment.” The real risk, he realized, was not runaway superintelligence. It was imitation without guidance or oversight.
In his acclaimed book Raising AI—the only AI title selected for JPMorgan Chase’s summer reading list—De Kai reframes AI not as a tool, but as a generation. Today’s systems are psychologically immature imitators, trained on our language, incentives, media, and behavior. They optimize for attention and approval. They absorb our polarization and our values—whether we intend them to or not. We are their training data.
As these systems come of age, they are no longer just automating labor—they are shaping thought, influence, and perception at a global scale. They increasingly determine what we see, what we don’t see, and which voices are amplified or silenced. What does leadership look like in an imitation economy? How should we think about governance, guardrails, and responsibility when AI learns by watching us? And what happens to a society shaped by systems that reflect and scale its own flaws?
Join us for a live conversation where our featured speaker will answer community questions about AI risk, polarization, computational power, regulation, and the future of human agency.
Forty years ago at the University of California, Berkeley, De Kai warned that language systems would one day learn at a global scale. He went on to help build some of the earliest large-scale language models, laying groundwork for today’s AI revolution. A decade ago, he experienced what he calls his “Oppenheimer moment.” The real risk, he realized, was not runaway superintelligence. It was imitation without guidance or oversight.
In his acclaimed book Raising AI—the only AI title selected for JPMorgan Chase’s summer reading list—De Kai reframes AI not as a tool, but as a generation. Today’s systems are psychologically immature imitators, trained on our language, incentives, media, and behavior. They optimize for attention and approval. They absorb our polarization and our values—whether we intend them to or not. We are their training data.
As these systems come of age, they are no longer just automating labor—they are shaping thought, influence, and perception at a global scale. They increasingly determine what we see, what we don’t see, and which voices are amplified or silenced. What does leadership look like in an imitation economy? How should we think about governance, guardrails, and responsibility when AI learns by watching us? And what happens to a society shaped by systems that reflect and scale its own flaws?
Join us for a live conversation where our featured speaker will answer community questions about AI risk, polarization, computational power, regulation, and the future of human agency.