Keen On

“Let’s just say it out loud,” Keith Teare, publisher of the That Was the Week newsletter, says. “AI is not dangerous.” Not all of you will agree. I’m certainly not so sure. But the gruff Yorkshireman is convinced that AI can only benefit humanity. For him, with his scientific faith in historical progress, today’s AI revolution is a glorious combination of the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution. The only danger, he warns, is the belief in danger itself. Thus his criticism of Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, who has been quite explicit about AI’s dangers — and for whom the doom narrative is, in Keith’s reading at least, designed as a business strategy to solicit governmental backing without government control. AI Is Not Dangerous. Repeat it. Take your ideological medicine. As if you’re in a Silicon Valley seminary. Sing it out loud. As if you’re in a Methodist choir. Believe it now? Five Takeaways •       The Economist’s “Lowlife” Moment: Keith’s editorial was triggered by The Economist’s forty-five-minute vi