Radio Live - Podcasts - Keen On America - 01.20.23: That Was The Week in Tech

01.20.23: That Was The Week in Tech

Author: Andrew Keen January 21, 2023 Duration: 19:44

Podcast episode

Keen On America

Keen On America is a sharp, fast-moving podcast hosted by author and commentator Andrew Keen. Known for asking impertinent questions, Keen cross-examines some of the world’s most thoughtful voices on politics, economics, history, culture, the environment, and technology. Each episode digs beneath headlines and hype to uncover what is really shaping America today and how those forces connect to global change. Listeners can expect challenging conversations rather than easy talking points, as Keen presses guests to explain not just what is happening, but why it matters and what might come next. Whether you are trying to make sense of polarized politics, rapid technological disruption, or shifting social norms, this show offers a bracing, critical lens. Tune in and listen episodes of Keen On America to hear Andrew Keen interrogate the ideas and assumptions that define contemporary American life.

In his weekly round up of tech news with Keith Teare, the author of the That Was The Week newsletter, Andrew imagines the possible "dawning of a new era" in Silicon Valley. For the week of January 20, 2023, Keith and Andrew discuss the future of Google search, a possible Apple virtual reality headset in 2023 and, the way in which ChatGPT is about the transform the world.

More episodes

Episode 2332: Greg Beato on what could go possibly RIGHT with our AI future

09.02.2025 Duration: 47:57

So what’s it like co-authoring a book with Reid Hoffman, the multi-billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and amongst Silicon Valley’s most prominent Democrats? According to Greg Beato, who just co-wrote Superagency with Hof…

Episode page

Episode 2331: The Week that Silicon Valley went from Woke to DOGE

09.02.2025 Duration: 40:38

It’s been quite a few days in Silicon Valley. "There are decades where nothing happens,” Lenin famously observed, “and there are weeks where decades happen”. As Andrew and Keith Teare reflect in their regular THAT WAS TH…

Episode page

Episode 2330: Eoin Higgins on how reactionary tech billionaires bought Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi

07.02.2025 Duration: 47:02

Wow. According to the journalist and historian Eoin Higgins, right wing tech billionaires like Marc Andreessen, David Sacks and Peter Thiel have “bought” prominent anti establishment journalists like Glenn Greenwald and…

Episode page

Episode 2329: Ethan Zuckerman on how the United States learned to love online censorship

06.02.2025 Duration: 48:30

Internet scholar and activist Ethan Zuckerman is horrified by the American ban on TikTok. As a self-described “progressive” with a long and distinguished career advocating for internet freedom, Zuckerman expresses alarm…

Episode page

Episode 2328: A gay Jewish atheist rides to the rescue of American Christianity

05.02.2025 Duration: 43:10

Trust a gay Jewish atheist to defend the value of American Christianity. In his new book Cross-Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy, the Brookings scholar and gay marriage activist Jonathan Rauch argues…

Episode page

Episode 2327: John Lee Hooker Jr explains who gets to go to Heaven and who doesn't

04.02.2025 Duration: 39:54

Who gets to go to heaven and who doesn’t? According to John Lee Hooker Jr., son of the legendary bluesman and author of From The Shadow of the Blues, many are called but not everyone is chosen. In the new autobiography,…

Episode page

Episode 2326: Mike Colias assesses the impact of Trump's Tariffs on the US Auto Industry

03.02.2025 Duration: 40:29

Few people know the U.S. car industry more intimately than the Wall Street Journal deputy auto editor Mike Colias. His new book, Inevitable, offers an insiders guide into what he sees as our messy, yet unstoppable transi…

Episode page

Episode 2325: Charles Piller on Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's

02.02.2025 Duration: 36:04

More than 6 million Americans now suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease. So the stakes in find a cure for this neurological illness are huge. Too large, in fact, for some fraudulent American medical researchers. As the investi…

Episode page

Episode 2324: Why we need some Sputnik Thinking on Wealth Redistribution in our AI Age

01.02.2025 Duration: 42:32

A week is certainly a long time in tech. On last week’s That Was the Week roundup, Keith Teare and I were asking if Trump’s America was a tech oligarchy. This week is all about the so-called “Sputnik Moment” of DeepSeek,…

Episode page

Episode 2223: Sophia Rosenfeld asks if our age of choice might also be an age of tyranny

31.01.2025 Duration: 52:09

In an era where even toothpaste shopping can trigger an existential crisis, intellectual historian Sophia Rosenfeld explore how we became both imprisoned and freed by endless options. Her new book The Age of Choice trace…

Episode page

Episode 2322: Andrew Lipstein on how to reinvent American masculinity

30.01.2025 Duration: 33:57

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?…

Episode page

Episode 2321: Michael Ignatieff on why he's still (half) in love with the United States

29.01.2025 Duration: 41:12

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 a…

Episode page

Episode 2320: Nicholas Carr on how technologies of connection are tearing us apart

28.01.2025 Duration: 45:16

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 Car…

Episode page

Episode 2319: Christopher DiCarlo on AI as the latest chapter in our long history of building an all-knowing God

27.01.2025 Duration: 38:28

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 t…

Episode page

Episode 2318: Mike Pepi on how to escape from the digital dystopia of platform capitalism

26.01.2025 Duration: 47:10

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 drive…

Episode page