Working on Sheryl Sandberg’s team at Google, Megan Hellerer (https://meganhellerer.com/) - who had just graduated top of her Stanford class - was on the fast track to become a young Silicon Valley superstar. A few years later, however, she had a breakdown and quit. Describing herself as an “underfulfilled overachiever”,…
Earlier this week, I interviewed (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2195-toby-walsh-on-why-ai) the Australian AI expert Toby Walsh about Google’s new NotebookLM (https://blog.google/technology/ai/notebooklm-audio-overviews/) , a seemingly magical AI product that creates believable conversation between bots. Today, on our weekly That Was The Week (https://www.thatwastheweek.com/) tech roundup, Keith Teare and I agreed that this is going to…
Last year, Michael Scott-Baumann, author of The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine (https://theexperimentpublishing.com/creator/michael-scott-baumann/) and a peace activist at the Balfour Project (https://balfourproject.org/mission-statement-2/) , came on the show to talk about the problem to end all problems (https://lithub.com/michael-scott-baumann-explains-the-dual-histories-of-israel-and-palestine/) - the Israel-Palestine question. Today, Scott-Baumann explains, this problem has, if anything,…
The AI revolution, long in hype but short in practice, is finally beginning to happen. In today’s WSJ, the tech writer Joanna Stern introduces her own Joannabot (https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/iphone-16-review-ai-joannabot-3d7fce19?mod=hp_lead_pos7) to review the new iPhone 16. Soon, of course, we will increasingly struggle to distinguished between the real Joanna and her Joannabot.…
This is the final episode of a trilogy of critical conversations about the digital revolution. Earlier this week, Gary Marcus explained (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2190-gary-marcus-on-how-to) how to tame Silicon Valley’s AI barons. Then Mark Weinstein talked to us (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2192-mark-weinstein-on-how) the reinvention of social media. And now we have the former member of the…
And still they come. Every week, it seems, there’s a new book celebrating resistance to Nazism. The latest is (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Two-Wheels-to-Freedom/Arthur-J-Magida/9781639367221) Two Wheels to Freedom (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Two-Wheels-to-Freedom/Arthur-J-Magida/9781639367221) , Arthur J. Magida’s true story of Cioma Schonhaus, a 20 year-old Jewish art student in Nazi Berlin who successfully forged papers for hundreds of…
Early social media pioneer Mark Weinstein (https://twitter.com/markweinstein?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) is deeply disturbed by the current state of social media. He’s not alone of course, but in his new book, Restoring Our Sanity Online (https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Restoring+Our+Sanity+Online%3A+A+Revolutionary+Social+Framework-p-9781394273966) , Weinstein lays out what he boasts is a “revolutionary social framework” to clean up social media. The…
Yesterday, KEEN ON featured a conversation (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2190-gary-marcus-on-how-to) with the technologist Gary Marcus about how we can ensure that AI works for us. Today, on our regular That Was The Week (https://www.thatwastheweek.com/) tech weekly roundup, Andrew and Keith Teare discuss the role of human agency in determining our tech future. For…
Few artificial intelligence experts have been as outspoken or prescient as the author and entrepreneur Gary Marcus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Marcus) . In his new book, Taming Silicon Valley (https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262551069/taming-silicon-valley/) , Marcus takes on the new AI barons of Silicon Valley - billionaires like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman who are building an AI…
As Donald Trump’s 79 year-old Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross) was the oldest first-time Cabinet appointee in American history. Ross’ mom, however - Agnes, a lifelong New Jersey schoolteacher and proud Democrat - probably wouldn’t have been proud of her boy. As he acknowledges in his new memoir, Risks…
