Captured: The Secret Behind Silicon Valley’s AI Takeover

by Christopher Wylie, Isobel Cockerell

The Secret Behind Silicon Valley’s AI Takeover is a thrilling journey into the hidden worlds of the tech elite, and a whistleblower’s look into the sci-fi future they’re building for all of us.

Seven years ago, a pink-haired young data analyst called Christopher Wylie blew the whistle on a company called Cambridge Analytica. The scandal he unleashed revealed how millions of Facebook users’ data was being harvested to influence elections. It was supposed to be a turning point—one where the tech companies were regulated, their power kept in check. But Silicon Valley is now more powerful than ever. President Trump is back in the White House with tech billionaire Elon Musk by his side, and the tech giants are racing to build AI systems that could give them unprecedented power over our lives.

Our destiny is being imagined for us by some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. They’re promising they can solve all our problems—end toil and suffering, and propel us into a utopia where we can live forever and never have to work.

AI has become the new religion. Are we going to follow it? Do we even have a choice? Or have the tech evangelists captured our future? Join Christopher Wylie and Coda Story’s Isobel Cockerell as they journey from exclusive crypto parties in Dubai, to the slums of Kenya where thousands of hidden workers are training AI models, to the hacker palaces of San Francisco where tech’s true believers talk about merging computers with our brains.

Note that this production incorporates limited uses of AI to illustrate how AI functions and is applied in various contexts.

Genres: Audiobook, Nonfiction, Technology

Audible Audio

Published April 3, 2025

About the author

Christopher Wylie has been called “the millennials’ first great whistleblower” and “a pink-haired, nose-ringed oracle sent from the future.” He is known for his role in setting up—and then taking down—Cambridge Analytica. His revelations exposing the rampant misuse of data rocked Silicon Valley and led to some of the largest multinational investigations into data crime ever. Born in British Columbia, Canada, he studied law at the London School of Economics before moving into cultural data science and fashion trend forecasting. He lives in London, England.

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a scary listen! Could AI make humans obsolete, perhaps even extinct?! Although, the rich will by then have uploaded themselves to a cloud in order to exist forever?

I am not being flippant, these are real possibilities.

At the start, we hear from people who have been offered jobs that they believe are telemarketing, but find out that their working days will be filled with the worst images and videos produced, in order to prohibit them from being posted. I cannot imagine anything worse, but these people live in poverty in Africa, and need their jobs to survive. I felt sick hearing this, these people regularly have nightmares about what they have seen. It is unconscionable. The sooner AI can perform this particular role, the better.

Big tech holds the cards, and we can only hope that mere mortals are Not collateral damage.

Not an uplifting listen, to say the least!

[Michelle N · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative and very honest review of AI, which allows you to make up your own mind about its current impact and future potential for good or evil.
Personally, I find a few characters behind this AI movement scary and hope that we will not be forced to give up our humanity and divine connection to live in this new world.

[Paul Sating · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you coaster yourself an in intelligent person, give this a listen. If it doesn't get you thinking, if it doesn't scare you, you're not the intelligent person you think you are.

[Behrooz Parhami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the unabridged 3-hour audio version of this title (read by the first two authors, Audible, 2025).

The book begins with the 7-year-old story of how Christopher Wylie, a pink-haired young data analyst, blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica, revealing how millions of Facebook users’ data was being harvested to influence elections. It was supposed to be a turning point, where tech companies’ power would be kept in check through regulation.

But Silicon Valley is now more powerful than ever, with tech billionaire Elon Musk continuously present next to the US President, wielding unprecedented power over our lives. Our destiny is being imagined for us by some of the richest and most-powerful people in the world. They’re promising they can solve all our problems—end toil and suffering, and propel us into a utopia where we can live forever and never have to work.

Will we have a class divide between billionaires who will get to live for hundreds of years and modern “peasants” with life expectancy of ~50 years? Is the main source of our fear the fact that the new Industrial Revolution is affecting white-collar jobs, whereas previous Revolutions impacted only blue-collar jobs?

AI has become a religion. Are we going to follow it? Do we even have a choice? Or have the tech evangelists captured our future? This book moves from exclusive crypto parties in Dubai, to the slums of Kenya where thousands of hidden workers are training AI models, to the hacker palaces of San Francisco where tech’s true believers talk about merging computers with our brains.
The audiobook consists of the following 6 chapters, each lasting from 31 to 39 minutes. Chapter titles are followed by my one-sentence summaries.

- Above the Clouds: Introduction to tech leaders’ lofty goals, from living forever to merging our brains with supercomputers.

- The Hidden Workers: All monuments known by the names of great leaders were built by invisible, underpaid, abused workers.

- The Magic Trick: Current AI has little understanding; it does things the way a magician uses trick boxes to deceive you.

- The Lost Valley: Tech companies celebrate their victories in amassing data and control, as the world collapses around them.

- The World Without Work: If human labor and creativity are no longer needed, how will we spend our days or be motivated?

- Deus Ex Machina: Some billionaires spend money on endless analysis of their bodies, supplements, and medical treatments.

[Jason Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the premise of this book was promising, and it wasn't entirely without merit, be aware that the entire book is strongly coded with leftist (marxist) ideology. Everything highlights oppression. Anyone who isn't fully left wing is fascist.

Summarizing the message: everything about the tech sector and AI misappropriates and abuses the labor of humans in many areas of the world. There are crazy tech people in Silicon Valley who are more interested in living forever, regardless of the cost of human capital. There is danger in AI empowring right-wing (a right-winger wouldn't consider any of this right wing... they would say it's all very libertarian centrist, but to the reporter class involved in this piece, that is literally the same as being a foundational fascist in 1930's Europe).

This could have been MUCH more interesting, but activists cannot help preaching about their ideology in everything they write and do.

They did have interesting segments with Nick Bostrom and a few other interesting people. And I don't disagree with bringing to light much of the exploitation they highlight. But it would have been interesting if they could have looked at the Great AI from the Chinese side to look at what exploitation is going on there. Or look into currently active benefits from the technology.

Meh.

[Cynthia Conlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well organized and reported. Fascinating and makes you think of what could happen. But not in a delusional sense. Raises some alarms of a possible future, and they’re not completely unreasonable. Existing in corporate control, AI becomes less a product to advance humanity, but more to just increase corporate profit. Therefore, this would be changing the power structure between the elite few who are in control and the rest of the population. There is also the thought that people are looking to AI now with religious reverence. As human lives are finite, AI may outlive us and take on a hod like quality. So it is a valuable listen.

[Ryan Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captured unravels a narrative of cult like worship of AI potential by silicon valley workers. The documentary sometimes feels a little heavy handed, clearly aimed to persuade listeners toward distrust of Silicon Valley and their AI promises rather than merely to inform. There is a distinct leftward lean present here but conservatives and non-US listeners who press through may be surprised at the amount of common ground.

Overall, this is an enlightening listen with a clear takeaway: we have choice in how we implement AI and that choice may change the world.

[Ron Plummer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost deleted this book from my library somewhere during the first episode. I'm glad I decided otherwise. The rest of the book was extremely informative and thought provoking. Afterwards, I realized I somehow missed Book 1: Undercurrents.

[Andrew Borg · Rating 3 out of 5]

thought provoking. some conspiracy theory vibes. i agree we need to be moderately vigilent but not of AI's instrinsic intent to takeover humanity but rather those who seek to make billions off of it at the expense of the other 99%

[Melvyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was plenty of fearmongering, a single piece of interesting and novel reporting (around the human costs of content moderation), and lots of juvenile posturing that should have been cut if this was supposed to be a serious journalistic endeavour.

[Jenni Ritchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book in interview format - in which I learned some distressing things (the PTSD caused to the poor African residents who train AI models and do content moderation). Nice contrast between different views of where AI is taking humanity.

[Aaron Burden]

This was an interesting audiobook/podcast.

The most interesting part was AI as a new religion.

[Laura May · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-done and thought-provoking. I'd not considered the parallels between elite capture of tech and religion before, but it was fascinating to consider!

[Chanpheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and enjoyable, with both a book format with interviews like a radio show

[Allison Salmon]

Really interesting though funny how they mention all the rich tech guys...except Bezos 🤔

[Nuno · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting overview of how the development of AI is affecting populations and individuals around the globe.

[Eileen Yu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listening to Captured while reading Careless People is like peeling back two layers of the same beast—one from the inside, one from the aftermath. Sarah Wynn-Williams shows how idealism gets slowly dismantled by corporate rot, while Christopher Wylie maps out the long game: what happens when the same manipulation tools are fused with AI and scaled globally.

Captured becomes increasingly captivating as it unfolds. The first half not as much, and even started to lose me, but I recommend pushing through to the second half of this series where it begins to take a more engaging turn.

Chapter 4: “The Lost Valley” overlaps meaningfully with Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism—with more depth in Chapters 33 to 35—particularly in its examination of election interference, Facebook’s complicity, and the erosion of democracy. Wylie shows how Facebook’s algorithms amplified disinformation for profit—rewarding outrage over truth. He also points to the Philippines election, where Cambridge Analytica harvested Facebook data to deliver personalized political messaging—a strategy later mirrored in Trump’s 2016 U.S. campaign.

Chapters 5 and 6 of Captured are especially thought-provoking—

Chapter 5: “A World Without Work” explores a future where AI replaces not only repetitive tasks, but deeply human roles like caregiving and emotional support. Wylie also introduces the rise of UBI and tools like Worldcoin—technologies that tie basic income and digital identity to biometric data—raising unsettling questions about dignity, autonomy, and conditional access in a post-labor society.

Chapter 6: “Deus Ex Machina” dives into the idea of AI as a belief system—where biohacking, neural implants, and transhumanism blur the line between science and faith. The movement toward AI-driven neuro augmentation is a quietly provocative idea—not just about chips in the brain, but about the ideology that machines should enhance us, guide us, and maybe even decide for us.

As the Vatican itself has warned: If we continue down this path, we could become enslaved by AI and even dispensible.
These questions linger long after Chapter 6 ends—some serious food for thought.