“AI is a theft of knowledge. I can’t believe we as a society allowed this.” — Noam Cohen
Ten years ago, Noam Cohen came on the show to ask if it was “Too Late to Save the Internet from Itself?” Back then, this early Silicon Valley critic was a New York Times writer. He was, as it turns out, a “premature anti-technologist” — borrowed from the premature antifascists. We should have listened to him. Now a freelance writer, Cohen describes himself as a casualty of the internet revolution. The big media world that employed him barely exists anymore. And tech’s Know-It-All elite are richer than ever.
His 2017 book The Know-It-Alls is back with a new introduction, triggered by that infamous photograph of Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai, and Musk at Trump’s inauguration. Cohen’s argument hasn’t changed — history has caught up with it. Trump, he fears, is their vessel. Like the tech titans, Trump doesn’t believe in regulation, doesn’t believe in democracy, believes only he can solve it. That’s the same thing Musk says. And Zuckerberg. And Altman. Even Amodei. They are all Know-It-Alls.
Five Takeaways
• Premature Anti-Technologists. Cohen’s phrase. We saw the problem in 2017. Nobody listened. The Know-It-Alls are richer than ever.
• Trump Is Their Vessel. Doesn’t believe in regulation or democracy. Neither do Musk, Zuckerberg, or Altman. They all believe only they can solve it.
• Stanford’s Eugenics Soil. Lewis Terman’s IQ test, Fred Terman’s venture capital, and the culture that made Epstein a natural fit.
• AI Is a Theft of Civilisation. All of human knowledge hoovered up without permission. The result isn’t intelligence. It’s replication.
• There Shouldn’t Be Billionaires. Nationalise AI and social media. Wealth inequality at this scale is inherently destabilising.
About the Guest
Noam Cohen is a former New York Times technology columnist and author of The Know-It-Alls. He lives in Brooklyn.
References
The Know-It-Alls: https://www.amazon.com/Know-Alls-Political-Powerhouse-Wrecking/dp/1620972107
The New Press: https://thenewpress.org/books/the-know-it-alls/
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction: is it too late to save the internet from itself?
00:01:29 Ten years later: Noam Cohen as media casualty
00:03:34 Nationalization, cigarette taxes, and paths to reform
00:06:22 Margaret Atwood and the dystopia that’s already here
00:06:46 Harvard, Paul Sachs, and how the powerful learn to like modern art
00:08:35 Inside.com, Josh Marshall, and the road not taken
00:09:51 Wikipedia: collaboration or the death of the professional writer?
00:12:06 Dario Amodei: can there be a good Know-It-All?
00:12:52 Social media: inherently bad or badly managed?
00:15:16 The Epstein connection: Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, and MIT Media Lab
00:16:44 Stanford, the IQ test, and the eugenics of the gifted child
00:19:18 Trump, genes, and “low IQ” as casual eugenics
00:29:33 John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and the original dream of AI
00:32:17 AI as theft of civilisation
00:34:48 Can we fix it? Nationalize the utilities
00:36:29 California’s billionaire wealth tax and the next election