Bad Entrepreneurs and Even Worse Artists: Does Capitalism Have a Future in the AI Age?

00:00:30 Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. It is late in the afternoon on Wednesday, May 19 in San Francisco. I'll probably put this out on May 20. We haven't had a That Was the Week show for a few days. I was in Korea the last, week, so we missed it at the weekend. And while I've been away, big news in Silicon Valley. The an Oakland jury rejected Elon Musk's claim against OpenAI that, he essentially or they stole his money, ran off with it, claimed they were a nonprofit, and then turned themselves into a for profit. Keith Teare, of course, publisher of the That Was the Week newsletter, our weekly friend, observer from Palo Alto. Keith, what are they saying in Palo Alto about this trial?

00:01:21 Keith Teare: Big big yawn event essentially, Andrew. I mean, it's a it's a bit of a sideshow trying to get prime time and failing, I would say, generally failing because there's too much else going on. But the this was, I mean, Musk actually ends up looking ridiculous because

00:01:38 Andrew Keen: Oh, that's not that that's the first time, isn't it?

00:01:43 Keith Teare: Yeah. I think he's quite okay with looking ridiculous regularly, but, this is a bit extreme because it turns out the accusation has a statute of limitations, which in for our non American viewers in America, unless you prosecute something within a certain period of time, you can't prosecute it. And that that's what happened here, which meant they spent two weeks on a trial that was from the very beginning. It was gonna be impossible for the jury to arrive at a verdict because it because of that. And they claim they're going to appeal, but then you wonder how they get around the statute of limitations. I don't think it's doable. I think I think maybe they're not gonna appeal.

00:02:25 Andrew Keen: Yeah. And, of course, many millions of dollars spent by lawyers in these kind of events. It's always the lawyers who win, but, presumably, some lawyers are being blamed for not recognizing this fundamental problem at the heart of the trial. What about, Keith, when it comes to the IPO? The New York Times ran a piece yesterday, five takeaways from what they call the blockbuster trial. I think it was anything but a blockbuster trial. It may have been a blockbuster in terms of the aggravation, the animosity between Altman and Musk, but very little else about it was a blockbuster trial. Are there long term implications for the IPO? Not that the IPO is, of course, long term. It's supposed to happen later this year.

00:03:14 Keith Teare: Well, if it if Musk could have proven that Altman and Brockman essentially stole a charity and turned it into a for profit, it would have had a big impact mainly in terms of penalties. I mean, it wouldn't have stopped the IPO, but it would have changed the answer to the question, who owns OpenAI? The answer would have been heavily changed, in favor of, whoever Musk chose to reward with his win. The fact that that didn't happen, I think it's now irrelevant to the I think the IPO is gonna rest on other variables, like what is the revenue ramp look like? Is Anthropic really number one now in terms of revenue or not? And various other subjective feelings that investors are gonna have when the IPO happens either at the end of this year or early next year.

00:04:14 Andrew Keen: Changing your tone, Keith. You always used to say that no one can catch OpenAI. Now you're suggesting maybe Anthropic have. What about when it comes to Musk, on the implications for him? There's been some bad press about xAI and his place in the wacky races on AI. Does this make him even weaker, or does it really not change anything?

00:04:45 Keith Teare: I think it doesn't change anything. I mean, it tells you what you already know. Musk is a fighter. He doesn't like losing. He will take you to the carpet if he has to, even if he can't win. It's an ego thing. And it really doesn't matter to him whether he wins or loses, the enjoyment is in staying true to his core beliefs, which is that he's right. So I, you know, I don't think I don't think we learned anything new about Musk from this that we didn't already know. And what we learned from Altman and Brockman is that

00:05:23 Andrew Keen: Yeah. The Times suggests that what this taught us, the five takeaways, is that Sam Altman has a credibility problem. I'm not sure that's entirely new. He's had a credibility problem for a while. But do you think this trial revealed that he has an even bigger credibility problem than we thought?

00:05:45 Keith Teare: Look. I don't think he has a credibility problem with the people that matter, which is investors or users. I think both investors and users look past the individuals to the platform and the growth. I think he has a credibility problem with, people who don't like big tech, typically in quotes, anti capitalists, because he's clearly a resolute capitalist. But for the same reasons Musk isn't liked by those people, I don't think there's much to choose, on the left between these two in terms of, hatred. I think it's pretty even.

00:06:29 Andrew Keen: So I would actually disagree. I think that Musk is Musk is loathed. I mean, Altman is just lumped in with Andreessen and some of the other billionaires, but I think Musk has a special place in, when it comes to people's hatred. Understandably, I as you know, I'm not a big fan of his.

00:06:53 Keith Teare: Yeah. But Musk is an exceptional innovator in the way that Altman is. [unclear: "Albinism" in source — likely "Altman is"] So whatever people think of Musk, they're wrong. They're judging him by the wrong criteria. And they're welcome to that judgement. Of course, it's a free society. But they're just, jaundiced people — not that you're jaundiced, Andrew. You couldn't

00:07:17 Andrew Keen: Well, I mean, I think I know this is not a political show, so this maybe is beyond what we should be talking about. But what particularly troubles me about Musk is seems to me again, maybe you'll correct me and tell me that I don't understand what's really happening, but, he seems more and more of an overt racist, but that's what particularly troubles me. But, anyway, let's leave Musk and Altman. What about, actually, coming back to Altman in terms of this credibility problem, one of the things that the trial revealed was Greg Brockman's role in all this. Why don't we talk as much about Brockman as we do about Altman?

00:07:55 Keith Teare: I just wanna note that calling Musk a racist — and then moving along rapidly so I can't respond — [unclear in source]. Okay. I mean, that's [a] very [serious charge].

00:08:02 Andrew Keen: Yeah. But fair no. You can respond, but very briefly, is am I wrong? Is he not a racist?

00:08:09 Keith Teare: He's not a racist in the way that most nativists are not. There's a there's a nativism about the world now. It's very prolific in Europe as well, and it's really about redrawing the borders post, post colonialism and post decline. And I'm not actually convinced that people who are, concerned about borders are automatically racist. I think I think there is a reason

00:08:41 Andrew Keen: I agree with that. I agree. I mean, I'm not I believe in borders. I'm not a believer that people can just travel from country to country, but I think you I'm

00:08:52 Keith Teare: I'm an open borders person, just to disclose that. I actually do not believe in borders. But that said, people who do, it's a bit like I'm not a Christian, but when I talk to Christians, I give them the benefit of the doubt.

00:09:06 Andrew Keen: Yeah. Well, we'll we'll do a border show another time because we're not gonna go down — back to Brockman

00:09:13 Keith Teare: — and all. Oh, fair enough. Yeah.

00:09:15 Andrew Keen: Explains, Keith, because not everyone who watches or listens to this show are as tech insider as you. What's Brockman's role? What exact what job does he have, and why does he sometimes get top billing and sometimes seem to get ignored?

00:09:32 Keith Teare: He's a technologist, first and foremost, whereas Altman is a product marketer. So Brockman actually knows what he's talking about on the tech, and I think, you know, that that means that he's, in Silicon Valley context, accepted accepted, as tech tends to be. And even though he's rich, he doesn't have much of a public face. He doesn't show off. He's pretty humble. So there's nothing much to dislike about him. Whereas Altman is a bit of a self promoter and marketer because he has to be. He's he's the face of OpenAI both to government and to the world. And sadly, there's no hiding place for Altman. And so I don't think we live in times where

00:10:23 Andrew Keen: That's sad for us or for Altman or for everybody?

00:10:25 Keith Teare: I think for Altman because he's not I don't think he's a bad person, actually. I think he's just a normal typical entrepreneur. And, he's gonna take all the flack that OpenAI gets for being successful.

00:10:40 Andrew Keen: Well, I, again, I don't wanna turn this into an Altman show, but Dario Amodei runs an equally or nearly as successful and large an AI company. He doesn't get that flack. So

00:10:54 Keith Teare: Well, the last two weeks that's changed, Andrew. I mean, the number of people going on YouTube saying they're abandoning Anthropic due to constantly changing rules around pricing as very, very large these last two weeks. And Amodei is now being characterized as, completely opportunistic and indecisive at the same time. So the so I think Amodei is gonna get tarred with the same brush. And for what it's worth, I think they're both exceptional talents, both of them. But then they're both gonna they're both making mistakes, and they're both gonna get the reward that comes with making mistakes.

00:11:37 Andrew Keen: Although, again, I mean, I have Amodei. The one difference between Amodei and Altman is that Amodei didn't have to deal with an internal coup that tried to get rid of him as CEO, whereas Altman did. And this is what brought a lot of these issues at least to the to the public for a couple of years ago.

00:11:57 Keith Teare: Yeah. I think I'm right in saying Amodei has, a block of votes in Anthropic that is, unchallengeable by the board.

00:12:09 Andrew Keen: So he's a Zuckerberg guy. What about your dog, Keith? Is he for or against Altman, or can you shut him out?

00:12:17 Keith Teare: Whatever it is, it's four syllables. It's Altman is something.

00:12:24 Andrew Keen: Wow. And finally, The New York Times in their blockbuster case, five takeaways, I don't know what editor is responsible for this, suggests that the AI race will continue apace. Wow. That's profound an insight into everything. I mean, so, basically, nothing's changed.

00:12:45 Keith Teare: Nothing's changed. It's just, it's more of a media show than it is anything real, I think.

00:12:51 Andrew Keen: One piece of news that I know you think is important this week is that the, open and another OpenAI cofounder I don't know how many cofounders do they have at OpenAI. There's about every time someone does something, they're called an OpenAI cofounder. But Andrej Karpathy, has joined Anthropic. Why is this a big deal for you?

00:13:14 Keith Teare: Well, Karpathy is he has the capability of being a stand alone, center of gravity in the AI space. He certainly is that in, in developer circles, and his GitHub posts are, you know, some of the highest ranked GitHub posts that that there are. He's a very, very thoughtful guy. He understands exactly the landscape of AI and LLMs. And for him to join anyone would be news. The fact that he's joining Anthropic is, I think probably the biggest news given that Anthropic has been going through some challenges the last couple of weeks. So they've got themselves a world class technical leader, and his job there is going to be teaching Claude how to teach itself. So if you like, repetitive failure loops, fixing failures, and then getting better, which is his specialism.

00:14:23 Andrew Keen: So this is a big deal. Does it reflect badly on OpenAI or well on Anthropic?

00:14:29 Keith Teare: Well on Anthropic, I'd say. I don't think there was any chance he would go back to OpenAI anyway. The other option would have been for him to do something himself as many of his colleagues have. They've all raised at least a billion dollars, if not more, each.

00:14:42 Andrew Keen: How many cofounders are there of OpenAI?

00:14:45 Keith Teare: I wanna say either five or six, but I, honestly, I, don't trust me on that. It's it's more than four.

00:14:52 Andrew Keen: And three of those are presumably Musk, Altman, and Brockman.

00:14:58 Keith Teare: And then, there's, Mira Murati, the woman who is the CTO. And I don't know if Fei Fei Li was there at the beginning.

00:15:08 Andrew Keen: I think we should print T shirts, Keith. We are OpenAI cofounders. Mhmm. That might if we're if we were in the business of finding girlfriends, maybe that would help. Of course, neither of us are. We're both happily married. Another interesting piece this week was in The Wall Street Journal, not an anti tech newspaper, which led with a piece, yesterday. The American rebellion against AI is gaining steam. Now I know you think that a lot of this rebellion is based on lies or propaganda or one thing or the other. But would you acknowledge that there is a rebellion against AI and it is indeed gaining steam for whatever reason?

00:15:51 Keith Teare: Absolutely. And I and to be honest, I never think no I never think ordinary people's ideas are based on lies and propaganda. I think ordinary people generally

00:16:00 Andrew Keen: Ordinary people in contrast to you and I who are extraordinary, Keith. Yes.

00:16:05 Keith Teare: Could be. Could be. Plato would agree. But that said, I, you know, I think these are reasonable fears by people who live in parts of the United States that have very low job growth, and probably have job shrinkage and, tend to be poorer and, fearful that energy prices will go up if data centers open in their towns and cities. So that that is not completely irrational because there is — the US has an energy shortage. And if you wanna get really down to the roots of it, it's that the US is — let's, you know, compared to China, the US is inability to innovate in energy at any kind of scale leads to fears of shortages, and shortages lead to price rises. So the so the this really is symptomatic of where America's at more than where AI is at.

00:17:08 Andrew Keen: You also have a piece by your old friend, Nirit Weiss-Blatt, on the weak foundations of AI doomsday. She seems to always be implying, she may not be say, explicitly that that all this anti-AI stuff is a bit of a conspiracy, maybe funded by some anti AI organization. What's she been saying about these weak foundations of AI doomsday, this week, Keith?

00:17:38 Keith Teare: Well, she's really just doubled down on her previous research to connect the dots between the news and where it comes from. And there is a manufacturing news business in the anti AI world dominated by, the philanthropist. What's it called? I feel I'm blanking on the term. But, basically, the lobby that is for philanthropy and has been

00:18:13 Andrew Keen: Are they the altruists? What are they — the Bankman-Frieds?

00:18:19 Keith Teare: Those people. Those people. And she you know, to give her credit as a journalist, she has very effectively connected the dots between where the news comes from, who's paying for it, and where it ends up appearing. And she isn't wrong, but neither is she right because she's trying to associate this campaign, which does exist, with people believing the campaign. And I don't think that is the right connection. I think people believe the campaign because there's an absence of an optimistic framing or narrative around AI in the US, very different from China where the only narrative is an optimistic one. And I think that lack of narrative is the end product of US recent history where trusting big tech didn't go too well. Now everyone hates Facebook. Most people, are neutral, if not negative on Google. Microsoft definitely mostly negative. Amazon, I think neutral to maybe marginally positive. But overall, big tech is not liked in America, And it leads to these, recognitions that young Americans have become anti capitalist, as part of being against their own country. And I think that it fits in that discussion more than anything else. It certainly isn't real. I mean, AI isn't gonna lead to doom, but the fact that most people believe it is, you know, needs a needs an explanation.

00:20:00 Andrew Keen: Maybe these young people, Keith, who hate Musk and Altman, maybe they need to grow their hair and spend their time having sex or taking drugs or listening to rock and roll rather than hating on Musk and Altman. Do you think that might be a better strategy?

00:20:17 Keith Teare: I, you know, far be it for me to recommend drug taking as a as a solution.

00:20:22 Andrew Keen: I know — it is supposed to be a family show. Yeah. I'm not that I'm promoting drug taking. But in all seriousness, the Zeitgeist has shifted. Not necessarily this week, but we're like frogs in boiling water here, and suddenly, the water is terribly hot. I mean, one of your news pieces this week is even Ro Khanna. Silicon Valley's congressman wants to reign in AI. If Ro Khanna wants to reign in AI, who are AI's friends?

00:20:50 Keith Teare: Look. He's, you notice his phrase there, the Epstein class. He's trying to associate wealth with lack of, moral ethics. And, you know, you could say it's a cheap shot, because

00:21:10 Andrew Keen: a cheap shot on wealth.

00:21:12 Keith Teare: Yeah. It's easy to hit on wealth, isn't it? But the truth is without wealth, there's nothing to spend and nothing to spend it on. So it's a it's a very superficial form of hatred, hatred on wealth. And for a politician to hate on it, it's a very superficial way to try to garner votes, especially when they don't tell you what they stand for. What is it that they would do if they were elected? There's no answer.

00:21:43 Andrew Keen: Well, you're now you're generating hatred against politicians. Eric Schmidt, couple of days ago, made a speech, commencement speech, and he got booed. I mean, Eric Schmidt can be a little annoying, but booing Eric Schmidt again, presumably a lot of the grad, the graduating class were horrified that that Schmidt was even speaking, at the University of Arizona. Something's changed. I mean, really, it's astonishing that, I mean, I'm not sure we're going back to Vietnam, but there is that feeling, blood in the street a little bit.

00:22:22 Keith Teare: Well, look look, it I think it's an entitled mindset that doesn't reflect or respect achievement. Achievement is not respected, especially by people who haven't achieved anything. The way they become equal is by bringing down achievers to their level, which is to attempt to demonize them. And firstly, it won't work because people who achieve things, it's on the record. They it will stand the test of history. And secondly, it's self destructive because you've all your energy goes on, negativity, and you don't put any pressure on yourself to rise up and make a difference. So it's actually the abandonment of agency by young people when they do this.

00:23:12 Andrew Keen: So says an ex revolutionary Marxist. Although it's not true, Keith, that it's just young people, people on the left against tech. I just came back from Korea on the on the flight back. I read Adrian Wooldridge's new book, The Revolutionary Center. He's been on my show. He's a conservative, certainly on the right in English politics, wrote the Bagehot column for many years at The Economist, now at Bloomberg. And in his new book, The Revolutionary Center, which he talks about agency and responsibility, morality, he also goes after big tech. So to be fair to the people booing Schmidt at the University of Arizona, it's not just the left that has fallen out of love with tech.

00:24:01 Keith Teare: No. I agree with that. It's ironic, Andrew, because, you know, trying to conceptualize the moment we live in the history of capitalism when, getting bigger is another word for that is the accumulation of capital. And the accumulation of capital is success at producing and selling things that people want. And so, you know, look at the numbers of engagement with all of tech. And it's, Google announced that they have, I think it's five products with over 3,000,000,000 users each. So clearly I think

00:24:43 Andrew Keen: this is, this is a Gemini product.

00:24:46 Keith Teare: Yeah. Well, actually, it includes Gmail and others. But, clearly, people don't hate big tech. They use it. They absolutely do not hate it. On the other hand, when it comes to a narrative or a zeitgeist, they want to be associated with people who hate it. And the this is, this is basically saying, I don't like success.

00:25:10 Andrew Keen: I know. I'm not sure that's true. I mean, don't the titans have some responsibility? Another piece that you linked to this week is some news that Andreessen Horowitz, the top VC in the valley, is now spending more money, in politics in the midterm elections than George Soros. Don't Marc Andreessen, Horowitz, Musk, Altman, don't they have any responsibility for this, Keith?

00:25:42 Keith Teare: I think they're participants. But insofar as they're participants, in terms of a narrative, they're on the right side. I mean, what is Andreessen's main thesis at the moment? It's called American dynamism, and he's trying to figure out how to get the American economy to be a growth economy that the rest of the world looks at positively. And, you know, that seems to be anything other than something to criticize. So you wonder why everyone focuses on the money. In fact, if anything, you should be saying he isn't spending enough. It's only a 100,000,000, which is a drop in the ocean in political spending in America. So Andreessen, does he really believe his thesis? Because if he does, why isn't he spending more of his own net worth on it? So I, you know, I can't really given the American system, I can't look at that negatively, other than to say it isn't enough.

00:26:43 Andrew Keen: But there are real issues. I mean, you and I have talked about this endlessly. We seem to talk about it every show about the impact of on what you call ordinary people. Couple of pieces that you connect with, Brian Merchant's excellent newsletter, Blood in the Machine. He's been on the show. His book on the Luddites was very successful. The impact on AI for artists, and then there was another piece about the impact of AI on scientific researchers, particularly those who write research papers. I mean, these are real threats, Keith. You can't just sweep them under the carpet and ignore them and say they're not real.

00:27:24 Keith Teare: I would rephrase it. They are real, but they're real contributions, not real threats. Who are they threatening?

00:27:32 Andrew Keen: Well, according to Brian Merchant, they're threatening artists. And the Oh, yeah. That's good. I mean, in historical terms, it's all very well telling an artist, well, in the long run, you'll be fine. In the long run, you'll be dead or be unemployed. Won't be able

00:27:47 Keith Teare: Let's take let's take Brian at face value. Look. If you are an artist and AI is better than you to the extent that people engage with it, not you, it rather suggest to me, given the state of AI art, that you're not a very good artist and you deserve everything you get. Why why do we cry crocodiles for that artist?

00:28:12 Andrew Keen: Well, one wonders if Rembrandt or Picasso was around, whether they'd even be able to make a living in our AR.

00:28:19 Keith Teare: By the way, Jeff Jeff at 3W Capital, who is Gad? There's a comment here. You should get Gad on the show. Would be a super interesting show. And, Nico McDonald, by the way, is saying he's really enjoying this. And Courtney Hamilton made a few comments as well.

00:28:35 Andrew Keen: Oh, well, at least we have people listening. And what else? They should be doing something else, on a on a late Wednesday afternoon. But going back to your main point, Keith, you always make this, well, in the long run, everyone's gonna be fine. But in the short run, everyone loses their employment and their revenue.

00:28:54 Keith Teare: Is that really true?

00:28:56 Andrew Keen: What do you

00:28:57 Keith Teare: say that?

00:28:58 Andrew Keen: What is so what would you say to you're just telling an the kind of artists who were being undermined by AI, well, you're not very good artists, so you should go and get a job in Safeway. Is that your argument?

00:29:10 Keith Teare: Well, look. The nature of an artist is you are as wealthy as your popularity. That's the whole point about art. I saw Paul McCartney on Saturday Night Live this week. Oh my god. He was awful. And he's clearly, you know, losing it. And these audiences shrinking as a result. Artists and audience, you know, are correlated in terms of talent and momentary talent, sometimes other times enduring talent. So I think AI doesn't really change that. I still think great artists will be great artists and get audiences, but I think bad ones, you know, it's the same with writing. If my newsletter isn't readable and then there's an AI one that's better, why should I recommend people to read me and not the AI?

00:30:00 Andrew Keen: Well, if you relied on your newsletter is free. You have a main gig. If you relied on the newsletter to feed your family and pay your rent, you might have a different take on.

00:30:10 Keith Teare: And Gad is Gad Saad, s a d. So we gotta figure out who that is. And, Jeff, send him a link to this show and tell him we want him on.

00:30:20 Andrew Keen: Well, every time I ask you a hard question, you change subject. So let's go back to Noah Smith, a regular at least in your newsletter. Very, very good journalist. He asked an interesting question in his newsletter, Noahpinion, this week. Do billionaires earn their money? I've often wondered that. I mean, they clearly deserve to be rich, but do they actually earn their billions, Keith, at least according to Noah Smith?

00:30:47 Keith Teare: I'm a little bit immune to the word deserve because I don't think anyone deserves anything that they don't

00:30:53 Andrew Keen: Well, but I asked you about what does Smith say?

00:30:56 Keith Teare: So Smith is trying to draw the lines between the outcome of what the billionaires do and their net worth growing as a result of it. And if you really go deep inside of that, at one level, it's just a question that classical economists asked, which is where does wealth come from? And then another level, it's a moral judgment about the age we live in, And it and it's trying to play both roles. At the level of, the production of wealth, it's quite clear that the source of all wealth is the fact that you can put together a whole bunch of resources, including labor, and sell it for more than it costs you to put it together. That's basically it. And if you can be funded by venture capital, you can even sell it for less for a while and be subsidized until you get big enough to make a profit. So the system allows billionaires to emerge from innovating things that lots of people pay money for and eventually they're paying more money than it costs to produce the stuff. So in that sense, there's no moral argument there. It's just a math it's math. Then the second thing is, should they keep it all? And my answer probably in the long run is no. They shouldn't. They if they're wise, they will want to lift up the entire society to new levels to create harmony and goodness for everyone. And that that typically in history is hasn't happened peaceably. Maybe for the first time, the amount of wealth being produced is gonna be so large that its peaceful distribution becomes both obvious as a need and logical as an outcome and accepted by the people producing the wealth, at the, you know, orchestrating the production of the world.

00:33:01 Andrew Keen: Yeah. Again, you and I have talked about this endlessly. I'm certainly not convinced with the universality of this concentrated new wealth. A stat I heard recently is that there are more billionaires in Palo Alto than there are in all of Europe. Paul Krugman, who I know as an economist you respect, who is a substack writer now run The New York Times columnist, asks is Europe in economic decline? Or, alternatively, does Europe offer an alternative system? We always talk about the American Chinese systems emerging. Is Europe itself shaping a new system according to Krugman?

00:33:46 Keith Teare: I honestly think it's I both understand him. He's by the way, he's in Europe at the moment. He's been there for a couple of weeks, and he's obviously getting infected by good food and nice oceans and the like. But, it's pretty hard in Europe to find a rational plan to make life better. You know, the powers that be in Europe seem to spend most of their time conducting irrational plans to make life worse, mainly through bureaucracy and rules. So that's hard. That said, he does have a point. And what is his point? Firstly, he's making a mathematical point that, the lifestyle in Europe, which has a GDP per capita only about, a third of The US's, is not two thirds worse. Because a third of the money can buy a lot more than a third of the lifestyle. And therefore, life in Europe is a lot better than the bold numbers, appear to be. He's right about that. You can buy things cheaper. You can buy homes cheaper. You can travel cheaper. The social welfare system

00:35:00 Andrew Keen: Yeah. The health care system in particular. Education and health care.

00:35:04 Keith Teare: Yeah. So he's not he's not wrong. And there's a lot to admire about, the gains that Europe made since the enlightenment that are enshrined in those democracies and those economic systems. That said, it's highly challenged to grow or even maintain its status unless it unlocks the shackles of innovation, which it doesn't seem to want to do.

00:35:31 Andrew Keen: Finally, I made a joke about you being an ex Marxist. Another I'm not sure he's an ex Marxist. Certainly a Marxist economist, very distinguished one. Old friend of mine, Branko Milanovic, has a really interesting post this week on his Substack. Artificial intelligence and the future of capitalism from a Marxist and neoclassical point of view. We're gonna get, Branko on the show. The three of us will talk like we did with Jonathan Rauch last week because I know you are particularly interested by, Milanovic's work, Keith. But does what does an old Marxist like Milanovic make of AI? He's it seems like he's a little more optimistic than some of the liberals.

00:36:17 Keith Teare: Well, what's interesting is that he aligns with Elon Musk on a profound and simple point, which is that if automation taken to its logical conclusion means that there is no longer a labor component, inside inside everything we make, that, therefore, the social contract between capital and labor goes away, and, the production of value goes away, value in the classical Adam Smith and David Ricardo and Marx sense. And what you're left with is things that are free. That's basically his thinking. And there's there's a whole, subtext here on something called the organic composition of capital. And if, if basically variable capital is reduced down to zero, most of that being labor power, you get close to free. And Musk says the same thing, and when things are free, there's no need for money. So he's basically asking the question, could capitalism produce its opposite? And his answer is yes. It could. And I actually agree with that, by the way.

00:37:38 Andrew Keen: Well, that's an old Marxist trope or Marxist piece of logic that Yeah. Capitalism will create its antithesis or destroy itself.

00:37:47 Keith Teare: Yeah. Yeah. Well well, look. This is just economics, and he's very careful to include Smith and Ricardo, so this can't be interpreted only as Marx. It's really is classical economics, and that means macroeconomics. And it means right down to the way we organize society and the division of labor and how things are produced and where the wealth comes from, which is, you know, undisputedly wealth comes from labor. If you can't hire people, you can't make wealth. So I think he's, it's a very interesting,

00:38:23 Andrew Keen: thing. Oh, no. But the is it again an area where I strongly disagree with you and Musk or the way you represent Musk. The idea that wealth or money is gonna be gotten rid of. Branco makes the argument that, he doesn't see a dismal future for labor, perhaps like, Brian Merchant and some of the other pessimists because, and I'm quoting him here, activities where labor cannot be substituted by the AI will blossom. And that's where I disagree. I don't know what Musk says on this, but where's where I disagree with you is that the idea that all labor is gonna go away is just absurd. There's gonna be many things that

00:39:06 Keith Teare: I think if you change the word labor, which has a very specific meaning in classical economics to work, if he said all work, the work will thrive when it's human to human. Think of things like, somebody taking you around their city when you travel or some, you know, I would agree with him. But that work is not going to be paid labor in a classical economic sense.

00:39:37 Andrew Keen: But the idea that and I'm quoting him here. Activities where labor cannot be substituted by the AI will blossom. So that's cautiously optimistic. Anyone who finds things where there's a demand for human labor will be well rewarded.

00:39:56 Keith Teare: I think I think if you if you conceptualize that for a second to 8,000,000,000 people in the world, And let's say, you know, the manufacturing jobs of, and the service jobs in that 8,000,000,000 people, let's get rid of, I don't know, more than half of them because they're no longer in the labor force. So there's, let's say, 3,000,000,000 people are working, of which probably 2,000,000,000 are working in productive industries or services that produce profit. If those go away, then the number of people who are gonna become carers or concierges on your vacation or musicians that you go and listen to is gonna be a tiny fraction of 3,000,000,000 or 2,000,000,000.

00:40:44 Andrew Keen: The masseurs, Keith. They would get thrown into it.

00:40:47 Keith Teare: Oh, the masseurs. So look, there's nothing he's a little bit scared of acknowledging the end of labor. I'm not. I not only do I am I not scared of it, I look forward to it. Because the end of labor means the end of paid slavery. And the opening up of freedom, that is to say choice of how to spend your time. The only question, it's a big question, is how do you eat? And he's got part of the answer, which is things are pretty much free. And the other part of the answer is you gotta find, you know, an allocation mechanism to the previously employed population that lets them participate in society to the same level as everybody else. That's not an inconceivable problem just to address. If but the minute you know you have to figure that out, there are there are solutions to it.

00:41:42 Andrew Keen: Well, I hope you're wrong because I think if everyone nobody has to work, we'll all become bad artists. So you suggest that a lot of the professional artists are bad when they're losing out to AI. What's worse than professional artists losing out to AI is everyone becoming artists or musicians or writers. But we will come back to this, Keith. Lots more to discuss. Seems as if we discuss the same thing every show, but that's because these issues are dominating everything, politics, culture, economy. We won't do a weekend show, this weekend. We'll do, another show, the following weekend. So, Keith, I will talk in about ten days. Keep well. And, we will speak in the meantime. Thank you.

00:42:28 Keith Teare: And this will be the video in my editorial this week, so I'll be publishing it.