Videos

Maybe Halloween is a bit early this year. As Jason Pack (https://www.jasonpack.org/about) , the host of the excellent Disorder (https://www.goalhangerpodcasts.com/disorder) podcast notes, a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a horror show. And while he’s much more optimistic than me about a Harris victory, Pack nonetheless views Trump as Exhibit…

Can one age with grace and wisdom? Yes, according to Andrew J. Scott (https://profandrewjscott.com/the-longevity-imperative/) , author of the Longevity Imperative, (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/andrew-j-scott/the-longevity-imperative/9781668638163/?lens=basic-books) one of the six books on the Financial Times’ illustrious short list (https://www.ft.com/content/27f60ee7-94cc-4098-9f5a-52fbf2f71b39) for best business books of the year . For Scott, aging in the 21st century requires…

Last week, the Los Angeles Times book critic, Bethanne Patrick, came on the show to talk about the best new non-fiction (https://keenon.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/150494012?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fpublished) books for the Fall. Today she is back to talk new novels by great fictional writers like Allan Hollinghurst, Rachel Kushner and Paula Hawkins. For those of you…

There are few more passionate bibliophiles than those who have dedicated their lives to the publishing business. Take, for example, Stephen Riggio (https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/riggio-stephen-1954) , the former CEO of Barnes & Noble who, as he confessed to me, has been hooked on books his whole life. Riggio’s latest book project is…

There are few men politically or intellectually smarter than President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary Robert McNamara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara) . So how did LBJ and McNamara screw up America’s involvement in Vietnam so tragically? According to Peter Osnos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Osnos) , the author of LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined…

As the longtime collaborator of the 2024 Nobel laureates John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, Terrence Sejnowski (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Sejnowski) is one of America’s most distinguished AI scientists. In his new book, ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution (https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049252/chatgpt-and-the-future-of-ai/) , Sejnowski addresses some of the central technical and philosophical…

Not only is the AI revolution really happening, but its Large Language Model technology is becoming an independent actor in the world. Rather than the dark conclusion of a techno-pessimist, this is actually the view of one of the leading AI platforms. For this week’s episode of That Was The…

From the introduction of North Korean troops into the war in Ukraine to a budding friendship with Elon Musk, Putin continues to make strange headlines. The real question is whether Putin actually knows what he’s doing or if he, as a wannabe 21st century Russian Tsar, is subject to the…

The Politifact founder, Duke University professor and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Bill Adair (https://billadair.com/about) certainly isn’t the first person to raise the alarm about the problem of lying in American politics. But what’s really interesting about his new book, Beyond the Big Lie (https://billadair.com/books) , is that Adair also has…

In February 2011, I had the maven of mavens, Seth Godin (https://www.sethgodin.com/) , on the show to discuss the end (https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/07/keen-on-seth-godin-while-we-werent-paying-attention-the-industrial-age-just-ended-tctv/) of the industrial age. “So why are you so popular?” I asked the best-selling author, entrepreneur and teacher. “I notice things,” he explained. Luckily for all of us, nearly…

New books about the impact of AI on the human condition are two a penny. But it’s rare to have an AI book by such a prominent author as Robert Skidelsky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Skidelsky) , a member of the British House of Lords and the author of the iconic three-volume biography of…

Early today, we posted a conversation (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2224-celeste-marcus-on-why) with Celeste Marcus, LIBERTIES Quarterly managing editor, about her hard-hitting “Hate Lands” essay in the Fall 2024 issue. In the same issue (https://libertiesjournal.com/) , there’s an equally hard hitting piece by the Rutgers historian, Katherine C. Epstein (https://katherineepstein.camden.rutgers.edu/) . But whereas Marcus goes…

There are some seriously heavyweight new non-fiction books this Fall including memoirs by Al Pacino and Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as an intriguing new historical analysis of the recently departed Queen Elizabeth and that inevitable pre-election Bob Woodward tome on the misbehavior of you-know-who. But for our resident book…

Last October, we featured a conversation (https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/1448694012/keen-on/the-repressive-power-of-artificial-intelligence-kian-vesteinsson-on-the-crisis-of-freedom-on-the-internet-in-2023) with Kian Vesteinsson, co-author of Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/) ’s 2023 FREEDOM ON THE NET report, about the repressive power of artificial intelligence. A year later, Freedom House’s 2024 FREEDOM ON THE NET (https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2024/struggle-trust-online) report is entitled “The Struggle for Trust Online”. And as…