Keen On

According to Andrew Lipstein, here are 3 questions at the heart of his acclaimed new novel Something Rotten: a) What do we want masculinity to look like? b) What constitutes truth? c) How to present death in our culture?Yeah, seriously big questions for anb ambitious novel. Set in Copenhagen, Something Rotten follows a canceled NPR host wrestling with masculinity in liberal society. Lipstein, a Brooklyn-based writer with three young boys (all under 3) and a Danish wife, offers his own insights into the cultural contrast between America and Denmark, on everything from social welfare to masculine ambition. In contrast with Lipstein’s three points, here are the 5 KEEN ON takeaways from our conversation:* On Writing Fiction vs. Nonfiction* Lipstein finds writing nonfiction significantly more challenging and less enjoyable than fiction* He estimates it takes him 2-3 times longer to write a single paragraph of nonfiction compared to fiction* Despite the challenges, he's currently working on a nonfiction book about

From Dylan to democracy, from Bobby Kennedy to Putin's Russia - this wide-ranging conversation with Michael Ignatieff riffs off “The Adults in the Room,” his latest essay for Liberties Quarterly. A liberal intellectual and politician who grew up enchanted by the Sixties counterculture, Ignatieff is deeply concerned by the American lurch into MAGAism. That said, however, the Canadian still seems (half) in love with the United States and hasn’t totally given up on what he calls liberalism's “incorrigible vitality”. Here are the 5 KEEN ON takeaways from our conversation with Ignatieff:* Ignatieff sees the current global situation as potentially the biggest change since 1945, marked by a fundamental shift in America's approach to international relations under Trump - from viewing allies as sources of power to treating them as potential adversaries to be exploited.* He describes a profound crisis in the international rules-based order, with institutions like the UN Security Council deadlocked, Geneva Conventions b

A new book by the Pulitzer Prize finalist Nicholas Carr is always a major event. And today’s release of SUPERBLOOM: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart offers a prescient critique of our social media age. As Carr explains, our assumption that more communication leads to better understanding is fundamentally wrong. Instead, he suggests that excessive communication through digital platforms actually tears people apart. Carr’s use of the “Superbloom” metaphor refers to an actual 2019 event in Southern California where people flocked to photograph wildflowers for social media, trampling the actual flowers in pursuit of the perfect image. Carr uses this as a metaphor for how we increasingly experience reality through online media rather than directly. Carr challenges the idea that new communication technologies automatically bring people together, noting how previous innovations like the telegraph and telephone came with similar utopian promises that were never fulfilled. He argues that modern smartphone

Is AI the latest chapter in our long history of creating an all-knowing God? AI ethicist Christopher DiCarlo certainly suspects it is. In his new book "Building a God: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and the Race to Control It, DiCarlo argues that we are creating AI systems with godlike capabilities that will eventually exceed all human intelligence through their ability to make unprecedented inferences and connections. Like so many other self-styled ethicists, DiCarlo emphasizes the urgent need to establish ethical guardrails and principles for AI development. He expresses both hope for AI's potential benefits, particularly in medicine, while warning about the risks of losing control of super intelligent systems that might, one day, develop their own ethical frameworks. Given that AI development is currently largely controlled by profit-driven companies and shaped by geopolitical competition rather than ethical considerations, DiCarlo advocates for raising public awareness and establishing robust inter

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s another anti tech book. In Against Platforms: Surviving Digital Utopia, digital activist Mike Pepi argues that major tech companies like Meta, Amazon, Tesla, and OpenAI are all driven by "platform logic" - a business model focused on creating intermediary layers that mediate human activities while collecting data and maintaining control. While different tech leaders may have different political views, Pepi contends they are all ultimately "prisoners of the platform" driven by growth imperatives. Pepi distinguishes his critique from other tech criticism by arguing that even proposed solutions often fall into the "digital utopian" trap - the belief that better technology can fix technology's problems. Instead, he advocates for strengthening traditional institutions rather than trying to replace them with platforms. He cites journalism as an example where platforms have weakened traditional institutions rather than improved them. While not exactly anti-technology, Pepi beli

In Keith Teare’s That Was the Week newsletter for this week, he categorically asserts that there is no oligarchy in Trump’s America. Instead there are “just technologists with a passion for change and, of course, self-interest”. But I’m not so sure. So in this issue of our weekly show, Keith and I debate the nature of tech power in America. Keith argues argues against characterizing tech leaders like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Altman as oligarchs, claiming they're simply competing businessmen seeking influence rather than a unified controlling group. He views their alignment with Trump as a reaction to what he sees as over-regulation by the Biden administration. But regardless of whether tech leaders agree on everything, I argue, their enormous wealth and influence on what I call MAGA’s “national capitalism” effectively makes them an oligarchy. Indeed, they are, I think, a textbook example of Aristotle’s definition of “oligarchy” which he defined as "rule by the rich”. Keith Teare is the founder and CEO of Signal

So what, exactly, is a philosophical life? According the University of Chicago philosopher Agnes Callard, author of the much acclaimed new book Open Socrates, it means being able to ask questions with the intuitive fluency of Socrates. In our conversation, Callard confesses her own hilarious early attempt to emulate Socrates by approaching strangers at the Art Institute of Chicago, and explains why it failed spectacularly. Callard offers the Socratic diagnosis that many of our current political and social divisions stem from a failure to be sufficiently inquisitive. Our conversation - which I also hope had a Socratic quality - presents philosophy not as an academic exercise, but as a vital way of engaging with others and understanding ourselves.Agnes Callard is an American philosopher and an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. She has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Point, and others.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ maga

This is the last and amongst the liveliest of my interviews at Munich’s DLD Conference this year. An old friend who has appeared on KEEN ON several times before, Andrew McAfee is a MIT professor who co-wrote the 2014 classic The Second Machine Age. In our conversation, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the DLD Conference, McAfee reflects on the technological changes of the past 20 years,. He acknowledges that while he accurately predicted the broad trajectory of technological advancement, he underestimated AI's capabilities in areas like language processing and creative tasks. McAfee discusses the emergence of deep learning around 2012 and its evolution into today's generative AI. While maintaining overall optimism about technology's impact, he expresses concern about increasing social polarization and anxiety, particularly related to social media use, though he notes these trends actually preceded current technology. On economic matters, McAfee challenges the notion that tech innovation is stagnating, poi

Most of the breathless talk in snowy Munich at this year’s DLD conference, of course, was about the generative AI revolution. But amongst all the hype and glitz about our brave new AI future, Richard Socher stands out. Born in 1983 in Dresden, East Germany, the now Silicon Valley based Socher is amongst the headful of genuine pioneers who helped revolutionize natural language processing. In this conversation, he discusses his journey from being part of a small "heretical" group of researchers in 2010 who believed in using neural networks for natural language processing, to seeing his ideas become mainstream technology that even Munich and San Francisco taxi/Uber now discuss. Socher explains how he helped develop crucial concepts like word vectors and prompt engineering, which influenced the development of modern AI systems. He founded you.com, which focuses on providing accurate AI answers for knowledge workers and enterprises, differentiating itself from consumer-focused AI platforms. Regarding AI's future,

If anyone should be anointed “aunt” or “court jEsther” of the tech industry, it’s long time journalist, investor and philanthropist Esther Dyson. When I caught up with Dyson at DLD, she reflected on her 40+ year career in technology and her evolution from tech industry observer to wellness advocate. Her aunt/court jester" role, she explains, is to provide honest feedback to the tech powers-that-be while maintaining independence. In this role, Dyson expresses concern about society's vulnerability to "information diabetes" - addictive content that, like processed food, provides short-term pleasure but long-term harm. She details her work with Wellville, a 10-year project focused on community health and resilience, and explains her upcoming book "Term Limits," which argues for the importance of knowing when to pass the torch rather than trying to live or serve forever. Dyson - who, between 2008 and 2009 lived in Star City outside Moscow, Russia and trained as a backup cosmonaut - also shares her unique insigh

With Trump’s inauguration today, are we really about experience a new “golden age” in America? No. Not at least according to the best selling writer Robert D. Kaplan, author of Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis (out next week), who argues that Trump's inaugural ceremony today, attended by fawning Silicon Valley moguls, exemplifies the moneyed “decadence” that often precedes imperial decline. A new book from Kaplan is always a big deal. But in today’s Trumpian America, Waste Land seems particularly prescient. The book draws heavily from historians of decline like Oswald Spengler and examines how globalization has split American society into two halves: a cosmopolitan, globally-oriented coastal elite and a poorer, more nationalistic hinterland. He argues that this division has eliminated the political center, burdening every election an existential quality. Despite the book's generally Spenglerian pessimism, Kaplan concluded with a note of hope, suggesting that a rediscovery of classical liberalism – char

Amidst all the doom and gloom of the current zeitgeist, Harvard University literature professor & DLD 2025 speaker Martin Puchner remains cautiously optimistic about our high tech future. Reflecting on cultural and technological changes over the past 20 years. Puchner explains how digital technology has transformed academic research and teaching since 2005, noting how the internet has made obscure texts more accessible and changed how scholars work. While acknowledging concerns about declining humanities enrollment and student reading habits, Puchner maintains a cautiously optimistic outlook. He observes that while fewer top students choose to study literature, there's been a growth in public engagement with humanities through book clubs, podcasts, and adult education. Puchner offers nuanced perspectives on several contemporary issues, including the rise of student anxiety (which he attributes more to psycho-pharmaceuticals than technology), the paradox of people valuing reading while actually reading les

In this week’s That Was The Week round up of tech news, Andrew and Keith Teare discuss the need for progressives to become what Keith calls “yes people” on technology. At the moment, he argues, their reactionary “no” on tech is handing MAGA conservatives and their Silicon Valley backers a free pass to win the debate about the future. While Keith and Andrew aren’t always on the same page about the need to regulate Big Tech, they are in complete agreement that progressives - both inside and outside Silicon Valley - need to liberate themselves of their nostalgia for the industrial 20th century and embrace the digital future. 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” newslette

The Stanford Business School professor Michal Kosinski has spent his career warning about the corrosive impact of technology, and particularly social media, on democratic institutions and individual freedom. The Polish born academic gained notoriety for his research at Cambridge University on how social media data could predict intimate personal traits. His work became particularly relevant during the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2016, leading to significant legal consequences for Facebook, including a $50 billion fine. In this KEEN ON conversation with Kosinski, recorded in Munich at DLD, he emphasizes that Facebook wasn't inherently malicious but failed to understand the full implications of their intrusive technology. Kosinksi connects social media's rise with the growth of populism, explaining how platforms enabled figures like Trump and even Bernie Sanders to bypass traditional political gatekeepers. Kosinski also discusses his controversial 2017 research showing that AI can predict personal characteri

Few people have a better perch to observe technological change than Kenneth Cukier, deputy executive editor at The Economist and co-author of the best-selling book Big Data. I caught up with Cukier at DLD this year to get his take on the last twenty years of technology disruption. He began by remembering how, in 2005, tech giants like Google and Facebook were viewed simply as successful startups, not as the foundational platforms they would become. Cukier explores the emergence of Big Data, which he identifies as a crucial development that laid the groundwork for artificial intelligence. He notes two major surprises over this period: the unprecedented speed of technological change and the increasing level of social violence and incivility, particularly online. He expresses concern about the deterioration of civil discourse and human dignity in digital spaces. On artificial intelligence, Cukier argues that generative AI was a natural evolution from the big data era, though he's hesitant to call it inevitable.

One person I didn’t expect to see at DLD is the feted Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran. Not exactly a regular on the tech circuit, Temelkuran is best known as a critic of the Erdogan regime and author of the influential 2019 book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. In our conversation at DLD, Temelkuran argued that the world is experiencing a profound transformation comparable to the Industrial Revolution, where neoliberalism is eroding both democracy and basic human morals. She sees modern fascism operating through entertainment and spectacle rather than traditional military aesthetics, and emphasizes the importance of friendship as both a personal anchor and political concept in resisting authoritarian forces. Currently living in Berlin, she expressed concern about rising far-right movements across Europe. She critiques Silicon Valley and social media, arguing that questions of ownership and profit motives are often obscured by technological utopianism. Despite the challenges, s

We are back in Munich at the DLD Conference, Europe’s foremost tech gathering. DLD is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and, to mark this occasion, we spoke to some of the leading DLD’ers about the tumultuous last twenty years. First up is the Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger, author of The World After Capital, who - in spite of all the problems of the last two decades - remains defiantly optimistic about the future. He emphasizes the need to move beyond "industrial age thinking" focused on physical capital toward solutions suited for the digital age, where attention is the primary constraint. On AI, Wenger believes we've reached a genuine breakthrough moment, suggesting a 10-15% chance of artificial superintelligence emerging within the next year or two. He advocates for open AI models rather than concentration among a few large tech companies, proposing copyright reforms to encourage transparency in AI development. Wenger also discusses his practical efforts to create positive change, in

Published on the eve of you-know-who’s second inauguration, Kurt Gray’s new book Outraged focuses on why Americans are so divided and how they might find common ground despite their political differences. Gray argues that both sides of the political spectrum are driven by a desire to protect themselves, their families, and their vision of America from perceived threats. He suggests that humans evolved not just as predators but as prey, making us naturally attuned to threats and vulnerability. This perspective helps explain why different groups feel victimized and outraged by their political opponents. Rather than focusing on facts, which are often disputed, Gray advocates in favor of storytelling and listening as ways to bridge political divides. He emphasizes that most Americans belong to an "exhausted majority" who simply want to live their lives peacefully. Maybe. But then is there a danger that in arguing all communities as driven by the same emotions, Gray is relativizing morality and perhaps even excusi

A new book by the acclaimed neuroscientist Lisa Genova is always a big event. Genova, best known for her best-selling 2007 novel, Still Alice, has a new novel out this week, More or Less Maddy, which follows a 20-year-old aspiring stand-up comedian who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The protagonist, Maddy, grows up in affluent suburban Connecticut with a father who disappeared when she was young, leaving mysterious boats stranded on their front lawn – a hint at his own undiagnosed bipolar disorder. In our conversation, Genova emphasizes the importance of accurate representation in her fiction, having conducted extensive research with psychiatrists, psychologists, and people living with bipolar disorder. She explains that bipolar disorder affects about 2% of the general population and has a genetic component, with children of bipolar parents having a 10% chance of inheriting the condition. Our conversation explores how bipolar disorder manifests through episodes of mania and depression, with Genova notin

The world is shutting its borders to immigrants. Yesterday, we featured a conversation with Laurie Trautman who dates the Covid crisis of 2020 as the tragic moment when the entire world closed its doors to immigrants. But even in the internationalist EU, border policy is tightening. According to Washington Post’s Isaac Stanley-Becker, author of the new book Europe Without Borders: A History, borders have emerged as a critical geopolitical flashpoint within the EU. Against this backdrop, Stanley-Becker examines the 40-year history of Europe's Schengen Agreement, which eliminated internal borders between participating European nations. He explores how this landmark agreement, signed in 1985 in a small Luxembourg town, represented both a practical economic arrangement and a bold experiment in post-war European integration. Stanley-Becker reveals the complex negotiations between France and Germany that drove the initiative, as well as how the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dramatically reshaped the agreement's i