Episode 2194: Marietje Schaake explains how to save democracy from Silicon Valley
This is the final episode of a trilogy of critical conversations about the digital revolution. Earlier this week, Gary Marcus explained how to tame Silicon Valley’s AI barons. Then Mark Weinstein talked to us the reinvention of social media. And now we have the former member of the European Parliament & current Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, Marietje Schaake, explaining how we can save democracy from Silicon Valley. In her provocative new book, Tech Coup, Schaake explains how, under the cover of “innovation,” Silicon Valley companies have successfully resisted regulation and have even begun to seize power from governments themselves. So what to do? For Marietje Schaake, in addition to government regulation, what we need is a radical reinvention of government so that our political institutions have the agility and intelligence to take on Silicon Valley.
Marietje Schaake is a Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and at the Institute for Human-Centered AI. She is a columnist for the Financial Times and serves on a number of not-for-profit Boards as well as the UN's High Level Advisory Body on AI. Between 2009-2019 she served as a Member of European Parliament where she worked on trade-, foreign- and tech policy. She is the author of The Tech Coup.
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
Why Our Fear of Technology Is Nothing New—And Why That Should Give Us Hope: From Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT
Not Even God Can Judge Tupac Shakur: How a White Suburban Sportswriter Found the Humanity and Tragedy Behind Hip-Hop’s Most Misunderstood Star
Fighting to Tell the Truth: Why every Film about War is an Anti-War Film
Between the River and the Sea: American Jews and the Soiling of the Zionist Dream
The Vinci Code: How AI is Turning Everyone into James Bond
Huawei vs Ericsson: How Huawei Turned Sweden's "Neutral" Tech Advantage Into a Cold War Liability
How Smart is the MAGA Intelligentsia? The Professors, Philosophers, and Trolls who Transformed Rage into a Winning Political Ideology
This Is Not a Browser—Did René Magritte Really Predict the End of the Web Age?
The Panic of the Intellectuals: From Ezra Pound to the Trumpagies of Today
How to Choke Your Enemy: Why America Turned the World Economy into its Weapon of Global Domination
All Religions Are Absurd Because We Are Absurd: How the Internet is Creating the First New Form of Religious Community in 250,000 Years
Why the Real Road to Serfdom Runs Through Silicon Valley: Tim Wu on the Extractive Economics of Platform Capitalism
Are We Still Fighting the Hundred Years War? Why Joan of Arc, Agincourt, and the Black Death Aren't Quite Dead