Biography
Karen Hao is a tech reporter, experimental storyteller, and engineer. Hao came to media via Silicon Valley. Whether she is interviewing a scientist about her research or pouring over data to find her next story, Hao has always thrived best at the intersection of storytelling and technology.
Hao is now the China Tech Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, formerly working as senior AI reporter at MIT Technology Review, where she covered the field’s latest research and social impacts. In 2018, her weekly newsletter, The Algorithm, was named one of the best newsletters on the internet by The Webby Awards.
Prior to Tech Review, Hao was a tech reporter and data scientist at Quartz. Her writing has also appeared in Mother Jones, The New Republic, and other publications. In a past life, she was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of Google[x].
Hao received a B.S. in mechanical engineering and a minor in energy studies from MIT.
Articles, Publications, and Appearances
Karen Hao’s articles in the MIT Technology Review and her weekly newsletter The Algorithm which features the latest news and research on Artificial Intelligence.
Appearances
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Developing AI as a Tool for Healthcare (TEDx, September 2020)
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Why We Need to Democratise How We Build AI (TEDx, February 2020)
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Did Money Corrupt an AI Utopia (Slate’s What Next: TBD Podcast, February 2020)
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Value vs. Values: Balancing the Benefits of Big Data for Gender (United Nations Foundation – Data2X, November 2019)
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MAICON Keynote: What is AI (Marketing AI Institute, October 2019)
Selected Articles
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Inside China’s unexpected quest to protect data privacy (MIT Technology Review, August 19, 2020)
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Doctors are using AI to triage covid-19 patients. The tools may be here to stay (MIT Technology Review, April 23, 2020)
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The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI’s bid to save the world (MIT Technology Review, February 17, 2020)
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China has started a grand experiment in AI education. It could reshape how the world learns. (MIT Technology Review, August 2, 2019)
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This is how AI bias really happens – and why it’s so hard to fix (MIT Technology Review, February 4, 2019)