That Was The Year in Tech: When Nothing Happened (except Everything, Everywhere, All at Once)
That was the year in tech. When nothing and yet everything happened. A year betwixt and between, simultaneously revolutionary and uneventful. That's the ironic conclusion Keith Teare and I reach about Silicon Valley in 2025. It's as if the AI revolution is changing the world without us fully noticing. AI has become electricity—ubiquitous and essential, yet barely noticed. So what will happen on the tech front (or not happen) in 2026? Will it be another year in which nothing happened (except everything, everywhere, all at once). Or are we reaching 1789 or 1917 or 1989—a grand historical year where the logjam breaks and tech formally takes over the world? A true end and beginning of history. The first real year of the tech 21st century.
Keen On America 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 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
Episode 2318: Mike Pepi on how to escape from the digital dystopia of platform capitalism