Keen On America

As the longtime collaborator of the 2024 Nobel laureates John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, Terrence Sejnowski is one of America’s most distinguished AI scientists. In his new book, ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution, Sejnowski addresses some of the central technical and philosophical issues of today’s large language model AI revolution. And in this wide-ranging conversation, we talked about everything from the origins of human language to the existential question of whether our brains and smart machines are converging. Unlike other AI researchers, Terry Sejnowski is able to make the deep language revolution accessible to a mainstream audience. Strongly recommended.

Terrence J. Sejnowski is Francis Crick Chair at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Distinguished Professor at the University of California at San Diego. He has published over 500 scientific papers and 12 books, including The Computational Brain with Patricia Churchland. He was instrumental in shaping the BRAIN Initiative that was announced by the White House in 2013, and he received the prestigious Gruber Prize in Neuroscience in 2022.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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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 Week, we ran Keith Teare’s editorial summarizing this week’s tech news through Google’s Notebook LM. Rather than a tool, NotebookLM concluded, it’s becoming an independent actor in today’s world. And this provocative conclusion is substantiated in much of this week’s tech news, especially the rise of what’s being called “agentic AI” and the renaissance of robotics. Even today’s American politics, with its two Presidential candidates obsessed with telling voters what they do and don’t want to hear, seems to confirm the way in which the human world itself is a mirror of a Large Language Model.

Keith Teare is the founder and CEO of SignalRank Corporation. Previously, he was executive chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd., a U.K.-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. Teare studied at the University of Kent and is the author of “The Easy Net Book” and “Under Siege.” He writes regularly for TechCrunch and publishes the “That Was The Week” newsletter.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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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 same seemingly inevitable historical forces as the Tsars of yesteryear. As both a seasoned Putin watcher and the author of many books about Russia, Mark Galeotti is as well positioned as anyone to determined if Putin is a prisoner or a master of history. Churchill famously described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." In his new book, Forged in War: A Military History of Russia from its Beginnings to Today, however, Galeotti unwraps this mystery by seeing Russia as an eternal prisoner of its geo-strategic vulnerabilities and thus, like Putin, always insecure, land-hungry and bellicose.

Professor Mark Galeotti is one of the foremost Russia-watchers today, who used to travel there regularly to teach, lecture, talk to his contacts, and generally watch the unfolding story of the Putin era, until the Kremlin banned him indefinitely in 2022. Based in the UK, he is an Honorary Professor at UCL and heads the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. He is also a Senior Associate Fellow with both RUSI and the Council on Geostrategy, as well as a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague. Before then, he was Professor of Global Affairs at NYU and head of History at Keele University, and was educated at Robinson College, Cambridge, and the LSE. A prolific author on Russia and security affairs, he frequently acts as consultant to various government, commercial and law-enforcement agencies.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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The Politifact founder, Duke University professor and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Bill Adair 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, is that Adair also has innovative solutions to fixing what he calls an “epidemic of political lying.” One idea, he explained to me, is punishing politicians for their lies through fines. Another, is by pioneering a national pledge, in the manner of Grover Norquist’s successful taxpayer protection pledge, to commit politicians to telling the truth. Good honest stuff from America’s foremost authority on political lying.

As a reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, Bill Adair covered everything from small-town crime to big-time politics. He was a metro reporter who wrote about natural disasters, a business reporter who covered the airlines and a data journalist who explored the patterns of race and wealth. As the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief, he took readers behind the scenes to watch a White House advance team, to see the backroom deals of a congressional chairman, and to watch lawyers prepare for the Supreme Court. He interviewed a president, countless senators and once got to chat with Bono. In 2007, he launched PolitiFact, a fact-checking site with a Truth-O-Meter that rates politicians’ factual claims. The site spawned a dozen state sites that rated the claims of governors and other state officials. It also inspired fact-checkers around the world to start their own sites. He then co-founded the International Fact-Checking Network. He came to Duke University in 2013 as the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy. He teaches journalism in the Sanford School of Public Policy and directs the Duke Reporters’ Lab, where students and professionals conduct research about fact-checking and the future of journalism. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (with the PolitiFact staff), the Manship Prize for New Media in Democratic Discourse and the Everett Dirksen Award for Distinguished Coverage of Congress.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In February 2011, I had the maven of mavens, Seth Godin, on the show to discuss the end 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 fourteen years later, Godin is still noticing things, especially the obvious stuff that most of us miss. The problem, as he notes in his new book, This is Strategy, is that we mostly think tactically and thus overlook the strategic insights that enable us to plan a good life for ourselves and our community. And so we struggle to establish agency over our own lives, which is a particular problem in what Godin calls our era of carbon & AI. That said, Godin remains cautiously optimistic about all of our futures because, as he asserts, “we are hardwired for hope”. I hope he’s right - thereby probably proving his theory.

Seth Godin is an author, entrepreneur and most of all, A teacher. Seth is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker. In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, he has written 21 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It's Your Turn (And It's Always Your Turn). His book, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in countries around the world. The new book, out in 2024 is THIS IS STRATEGY. His previous books include The Song of Significance and The Practice, and creatives everywhere have made it a bestseller. Though renowned for his writing and speaking, Seth also founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo!). He's credited as the inventor of email marketing (the good kind). Seth has given five TED talks, including two that rank as the most popular of all time. By focusing on everything from effective marketing and leadership, to the spread of ideas and changing everything, Seth has been able to motivate and inspire countless people around the world. You can see his podcast appearances here. In 2013, Seth was one of just three professionals inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. In an astonishing turn of events, in May 2018, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame as well. He might be the only person in both.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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, a member of the British House of Lords and the author of the iconic three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes. In his new book Mindless, Skidelsky presents a sweeping history of our relationship with machines as way of explaining how we slide into our current conundrum with AI. While Skidelsky doesn’t believe that AI offers an existential threat to us yet, he is fearful of how smart machines could ultimately threaten the human condition. And, of course, we discuss John Maynard Keynes and his (mistaken) vision of both the future of work and of humanity in a market economy.

Robert Skidelsky is a member of the British House of Lords, Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, and the author of a prize-winning three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes. He began his political career in the Labour party, was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party, and served as the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords until he was sacked for his opposition to NATO’s 1999 bombing of Kosovo. Since 2001, he has sat in the House of Lords as an independent. He has also served as a non-executive director of the American mutual fund Janus (2001-11) and the private Russian oil company PJSC Russneft (2016-21). He is the author of The Machine Age: An Idea, a History, a Warning (Allen Lane, 2023) as well as Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence`(2024)

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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 maven, Bethanne Patrick, the most intriguing non-fiction release of the Fall is by a much less well known author. The Harvard art and culture historian Sarah Lewis’ The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, Patrick believes, is a major work that allows us to perceive the real truth about America in our age of hyperreality. And Sarah Lewis, she suggests, is up there with Isabel Wilkerson as an American treasure of truth-telling. So expect to see Lewis on the show in the not too distant future.

Bethanne Patrick maintains a storied place in the publishing industry as a critic and as @TheBookMaven on Twitter, where she created the popular #FridayReads and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to over 200,000 followers. Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times as well as in The Washington Post, NPR Books, and Literary Hub. She sits on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the host of the Missing Pages podcast.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Last October, we featured a conversation with Kian Vesteinsson, co-author of Freedom House’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 report is entitled “The Struggle for Trust Online”. And as Allie Funk, one of its co-authors, explains, it’s a very mixed report on the state of online trust. In some countries - most notably Iceland, Chile and Taiwan - internet freedom has improved in 2024. But in others - especially Russia, Iran and, especially, China - things have only gotten worse over the last year. So, I asked Funk, what needs to change to build online trust around the world? How can the large democracies of North America and Europe learn from Iceland, Chile and Taiwan to build more freedom on the net?

Allie Funk leads Freedom House's technology and democracy initiative, including Freedom on the Net and Election Watch for the Digital Age. She also represents Freedom House on the Freedom Online Coalition's Advisory Network, serves on the Global Network Initiative's Board of Directors, and is a Council on Foreign Relations' Term Member. Her writing has been published in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, WIRED, Lawfare, the Hill, the Diplomat, and Just Security, among others. Prior to joining Freedom House, Allie worked at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on issues relating to reforming U.S. surveillance practices, closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and protecting the right to counsel, and also worked with Human Rights First’s foreign policy team. She holds a master's degree in human rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in philosophy and political science from the University of Louisville.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The conventional way of thinking about digital technology revolutions is akin to thinking about how to build a house. First we build the foundation, then we add the frame and finally the cosmetic furnishing. In tech, this is known as the “stack” - and traditionally, each chapter in the narrative involves different companies and technologies. So in the case of the Internet boom, for example, first there were tech plumbing companies like Cisco, then middleware companies, and finally consumer companies like Amazon that interface with customers. But, as Andrew and Keith Teare discuss in this week That Was the Week tech roundup, in the case of the AI revolution, the entire “stack” might be owned by a single company. So OpenAI or Anthropic threaten to quite literally control the construction of the entire house - from laying the foundations to painting the walls and laying the carpets of tomorrow’s AI world. As Keith and Andrew warn, the implications of this on the future of innovation in the digital economy are immense. In the age of AI, Big Tech threatens to be dramatically more monolith and powerful than ever. Even Keith, the eternal tech optimist, seems a little nervous about such a dramatic concentration of wealth and power.

Keith Teare is the founder and CEO of SignalRank Corporation. Previously, he was executive chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd., a U.K.-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. Teare studied at the University of Kent and is the author of “The Easy Net Book” and “Under Siege.” He writes regularly for TechCrunch and publishes the “That Was The Week” newsletter.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Early today, we posted a conversation with Celeste Marcus, LIBERTIES Quarterly managing editor, about her hard-hitting “Hate Lands” essay in the Fall 2024 issue. In the same issue, there’s an equally hard hitting piece by the Rutgers historian, Katherine C. Epstein. But whereas Marcus goes after Trump and Putin, Epstein’s ire is reserved for her fellow American historians who, she believes, are, literally, “killing history”. And Epstein doesn’t pull her punches in this conversation either. America, she told me, is the “world’s teenager” in terms of (not) making sense of its own historical narrative. Meanwhile, “the donkeys are leading the donkeys” inside American history departments, creating a crisis of this most essential academic craft.

Katherine C. Epstein is associate professor of history at Rutgers-Camden.  She is currently working on her second book, which examines government secrecy, defense contracting, intellectual property, and the political economy of power projection.  Her first book, Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain (Harvard University Press, 2014), examined these issues through the lens of torpedo development before World War I.  In 2018-2019, she held an ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.  Her work has appeared in various academic journals and edited collections, as well as in the Wall Street Journal and American Interest.  She teaches courses in US history, military history, diplomatic history, and historical methods.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.