What’s the truth about our AI future? Our guests have different takes. On the one hand, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee predict a $7 trillion future for just three AI startups in 2027. On the other, Salima Bhimani doesn’t believe that Silicon Valley has the imagination to create the moonshot to address our jobless future.

For That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare, it’s a time for what he calls “champions.” What he wants is the development of a “human dividend” from intelligence. Supposedly this will be provided by the multi-trillion dollar AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic that will pioneer the social ownership of intelligence. But a Norwegian-style Human Wealth Fund is about as likely, I suspect, as a new Freddie Mercury recording of “We Are the Champions.”

Dream on. Salima Bhimani is right. The moonshot to fix our jobless AI future won’t come out of workaholic Silicon Valley. Look elsewhere for those types of champions, my friends. Brazil perhaps. The movie, not the country.

Five Takeaways

• The Zeitgeist Exaggerates. Luce’s “AI phobia” and Lepore’s AI-versus-the-people vs the $7 trillion future. Keith: the happy users are silent and “massively dominate” — Democrats who run against AI will lose 2028 “quite heavily.”

• Who Are the Champions? The problem isn’t negativity but the missing “vocal connection between AI and people’s futures.” AI’s leaders hedge like politicians. Andrew’s genealogy: Nixon’s silent majority, reborn.

• 90% Sacks — and Squashed Armadillos. Too powerful to distribute (Dario) vs too powerful to centralize (Sacks). Keith claimed the middle until the Texas armadillo rule forced a confession. Dario, per Keith: “handcuffs on AI.”

• Metering the Dividend. Andrew’s Claude throttling solved: $100 a month is generous — “they’re losing money on you.” Stripe buys OpenRouter for the token stream; prices tend to zero at the edge; a dumpling shop’s agent API shows the way.

• The Human Dividend. Keith’s finished book: intelligence’s surplus is co-produced, so the property should be too — a Human Wealth Fund, one share each, no state. Owners, not just users. And no champions at Old Trafford: United lost to Hull.

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

Keith’s newsletter: thatwastheweek.com

Chapters:

00:00:31 Introduction: a $7 trillion future nobody seems to want
00:02:35 The zeitgeist exaggerates: the silent majority of happy users
00:03:47 Weighing the users against the voices
00:05:00 The real problem: no vocal connection to people’s futures
00:06:21 Nixon’s silent majority, reborn
00:07:01 Champions trained as politicians, not business leaders
00:08:30 The Sacks tweet: too powerful to distribute or to centralize?
00:09:29 “Handcuffs on AI”: Dario vs the solar-powered box
00:11:05 Squashed armadillos: Keith confesses to 90% Sacks
00:12:46 Does AI need car-industry regulation? Lepore’s case
00:15:07 “She’s not acting as an historian”: why Democrats lose 2028
00:15:36 Helen Toner, Hugging Face, and the frenemy flashpoint
00:18:57 Metering intelligence: Stripe as champion
00:20:29 Andrew’s throttling mystery, solved
00:23:09 Stripe buys OpenRouter: the token traffic stream
00:24:39 The $6 agent and the road to zero
00:26:36 Free at the edge: kids, schools, hospitals
00:27:23 The dumpling shop that hired the agents
00:29:08 Like getting a website in 1994
00:30:55 Captain Kirk founders on the agent treadmill
00:32:51 The Human Dividend: 80,000 words down to 60,000
00:34:17 “A Keith Teare-written book” — in five days flat
00:35:16 Who owns intelligence? The Human Wealth Fund
00:36:16 Not Trump’s baby bonds: no state required
00:37:37 Sell it or give it away? A fortnight’s cliffhanger
00:38:08 No champions at Old Trafford: United lose to Hull