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…
At the debate last night, Kamala Harris opened her remarks by talking about the need for America to fix its housing crisis. And crisis it is, at least according to Jerusalem Demsas (https://twitter.com/JerusalemDemsas?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) , a staff writer at The Atlantic who has written extensively on the increasing scarcity and rising…
At the debate tonight, there probably won’t be much talk about American education. Which is a shame - at least according to Josh Cowen (https://www.josh-cowen.com/about) , author of The Privateers (https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9781682539101/the-privateers/) , a new book about how radical conservative billionaires like Betsy De Vos have created a culture war to…
The Serbian-American economist Branko Milanovic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branko_Milanovi%C4%87) is one of the world’s leading authorities on inequality. In this KEEN ON America conversation, we talked about Milanovic’s interpretation of the history of American economic inequality - from slavery to contemporary capitalism. Why has America become so much unequal over the last fifty…
The Brooklyn based Rafil Kroll-Zaidi (https://rafilkrollzaidi.com/) is a Princeton educated reporter formerly on the editorial staff (https://harpers.org/author/rafilkrollzaidi/) of Harper's Magazine. And he is another kind of reporter too - a citizen- sleuth who makes six figures annually by reporting polluting trucks in New York City. Writing about this experience (https://www.curbed.com/article/nyc-idling-law-citizen-air-complaint-program.html)…
Last Saturday (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2177-brazil-vs-x-france-vs) , on our regular That Was The Week (https://www.thatwastheweek.com/) tech roundup, Keith Teare and I discussed the French decision to imprison Telegram founder Pavel Durov. Today, we discuss the theoretical imprisonment of Elon Musk, an idea (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/30/elon-musk-wealth-power) touted yesterday by Robert Reich in The Guardian. Elon Musk,…
