Videos

Whatever one thinks of the creative potential of AI, it’s definitely been great for metaphor makers. Yesterday, we had Shannon Vallor explaining why AI is a mirror (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2108-shannon-vallor-on-how) of our social and political values. Today, Madhumita Murgia (https://www.ft.com/madhumita-murgia) , the Financial Times’ Artificial Intelligence editor and author of CODE DEPENDENT,…

According to Shannon Vallor, (https://www.shannonvallor.net/) a self-styled AI “ethicist”, artificial intelligence is a mirror (https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-ai-mirror-how-to-reclaim-our-humanity-in-an-age-of-machine-thinking-shannon-vallor/20842432?ean=9780197759066) . When we interact with the latest algorithms from OpenAI or Anthropic, she says, we are actually observing our social and political values, prejudices and ideals. This all-too-human quality of AI makes it less of…

We are focusing on the impact of AI this week with interviews featuring Shannon Vallor, Matt Beane and Madhumita Murgia. First up Beane (https://tmp.ucsb.edu/people/matt-beane) , who teaches Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara and has a new book out about how to save human ability in an age of intelligent…

Little has changed in America more dramatically over the last half century than the retail fashion industry. There was a time, Julie Satow tells us the mid 20th century, when the high fashion department stores on New York City’s Fifth Avenue were not only glamorous, but were actually run by…

There are those who believe (https://newrepublic.com/article/182383/defend-liberalism-lets-fight-democracy-first) that fighting for democracy is more important than defending the rather nebulous concept of “liberalism”. And then there are those, like the political philosopher Alexandre Lefebvre, who, in their eponymous new book, see liberalism as a way of life (https://www.alexlefebvre.com/liberalism-as-a-way-of-life) which makes us both…

It’s an odd world. Many of our most pressing political problems, particularly global warming, are long term, and yet we are still confined to the here-and-now of national politics to determine policy. This is the issue that Thomas Hale, an Oxford Professor of Public Policy, addresses in his interesting new…

Are we on the brink of technological “super intelligence”, machines that will be able to think and reason with infinitely more power than humans? According to Leopold Aschenbrenner (https://x.com/leopoldasch) , the author of Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead, (https://x.com/leopoldasch/status/1798016486700884233) a technological roadmap for the next ten years, super intelligence will…

Peter S. Goodman (https://www.nytimes.com/by/peter-s-goodman) , The New York Times’ Global Economics correspondent, is one of America’s most innovative and outspoken journalists. He was on KEEN ON a couple of years ago talking about (https://lithub.com/tk-peter-s-goodman-on-how-the-super-rich-have-changed-21st-century-life/) how the billionaire class - aka: Davos Man (https://bookshop.org/p/books/davos-man-how-the-billionaires-devoured-the-world-peter-s-goodman/16862892?ean=9780063078307) - has devoured the world. And now…

Bethanne Patrick (https://www.bethannepatrick.com/) , the world’s best read woman and KEEN ON’s official literary maven, has six recommended new books to read this June. Three non-fiction works and three novels, they extend from books all about women, to the dangers of jelly fish to a gay Hungarian in the Lavender…

Back in August 2021, we did a show (https://lithub.com/lucy-jones-on-the-relationship-between-the-natural-world-and-the-human-psyche/) featuring the British psychologist Lucy Jones (https://lucyfjones.com/) , about how nature maintains our sanity. Jones’ thesis is born out in the astonishing story of Banning Lyon (https://banninglyon.com/) , who was institutionalized in a Texan psychiatric hospital as a teenager and freed…

It’s becoming more and more self-evident that the Nineties matter (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2084-terry-h-anderson-on) . John Ganz’s important new book, When the Clock Broke (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605445/whentheclockbroke) , focuses on how, in the early 1990’s, the seemingly crackpot ideas of what at the time appeared to be con men like David Duke and Pat Buchanan,…

In episode 2065 (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2065-craig-whitlock-explains) , we discussed the Malaysian contractor, Leonard Glenn Francis (aka: Fat Leonard) about the biggest recent scandal in the US navy. But, as Guy Lawson, author of Hot Dog Money (https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Dog-Money-Biggest-Scandal-ebook/dp/B0CL7HV47T) (https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Dog-Money-Biggest-Scandal-ebook/dp/B0CL7HV47T) explains in this episode, Louis Martin “Marty” Blazer gives Fat Leonard a good run…

As America braces itself for the upcoming Presidential election, a growing army of coastal commentators are agonizing over the health of the country’s democracy. In contrast with many of these desk bound pundits, the Bloomberg editorial director Frank Barry (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARv2G4EWOmk/frank-barry) bought an RV and drove from New York City to…

In the wake of a “major Summit (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxrr1kyp04eo) ” on Ukraine which neither the Russians nor the Chinese attended, the war remains as murky and inconclusive as ever. And it’s this murkiness and inconclusiveness that the San Francisco based writer Sasha Vasiljuk (https://www.sashavasilyuk.com/about) explores in her new novel, Your Presence…