Episode 2190: Gary Marcus on How to Tame Silicon Valley's AI Barons
Few artificial intelligence experts have been as outspoken or prescient as the author and entrepreneur Gary Marcus. In his new book, Taming Silicon Valley, Marcus takes on the new AI barons of Silicon Valley - billionaires like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman who are building an AI future that works for them rather than for the rest of us. In technology, Marcus argues, human agency is all important. So Marcus’ new polemic seizes back the mantle from these Silicon Valley barons on its insistence that AI must work for us.
GARY MARCUS is a leading voice in artificial intelligence. He is a scientist, best-selling author, and serial entrepreneur (Founder of Robust.AI and Geometric.AI, acquired by Uber). He is well-known for his challenges to contemporary AI, anticipating many of the current limitations decades in advance, and for his research in human language development and cognitive neuroscience. An Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, he is the author of six books, including, The Algebraic Mind, Kluge, The Birth of the Mind, and the New York Times Bestseller Guitar Zero. He has often contributed to The New Yorker, Wired, and The New York Times. His new book, Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure that AI Works for Us is published by MIT Press.
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.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Episode 2331: The Week that Silicon Valley went from Woke to DOGE
Episode 2330: Eoin Higgins on how reactionary tech billionaires bought Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi
Episode 2329: Ethan Zuckerman on how the United States learned to love online censorship
Episode 2328: A gay Jewish atheist rides to the rescue of American Christianity
Episode 2327: John Lee Hooker Jr explains who gets to go to Heaven and who doesn't
Episode 2326: Mike Colias assesses the impact of Trump's Tariffs on the US Auto Industry
Episode 2325: Charles Piller on Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's
Episode 2324: Why we need some Sputnik Thinking on Wealth Redistribution in our AI Age
Episode 2223: Sophia Rosenfeld asks if our age of choice might also be an age of tyranny
Episode 2322: Andrew Lipstein on how to reinvent American masculinity
Episode 2321: Michael Ignatieff on why he's still (half) in love with the United States
Episode 2320: Nicholas Carr on how technologies of connection are tearing us apart
Episode 2319: Christopher DiCarlo on AI as the latest chapter in our long history of building an all-knowing God