Who Owns Intelligence? The Smart Wealth of Nations
About this episode
The episode discusses the ownership of intelligence in the context of AI and capitalism, referencing historical and contemporary figures and ideas.
In 1776 — that same year America declared its independence — Adam Smith published the equally revolutionary The Wealth of Nations, his founding explanation of national economic value. Two hundred and fifty years later, Tim O’Reilly argues in the free-market Economist that Elon Musk and his fellow tech barons are building a monarchical form of capitalism that the proto-democratic Smith would have hated. Musk, O’Reilly reports, believes that SpaceX will become “worth more than the rest of Earth”. The merchants are becoming princes, O’Reilly warns. And the rest of us are becoming peasants. Such is the road to serfdom in our AI age. So who should own the AI in our bewildering age of multi-trillion dollar start-ups like SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI? Or as That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare asks in his latest editorial, who should own the “intelligence” of our AI age? Keith uses a bottling plant as a metaphor to describe our dilemma. Since no single entity can own this intelligence — the sum total of our common experience — charging us for it would be like seizing the Earth’s water supply and selling it back to us, Coca-Cola style, in plastic bottles. Except that the Hayekian…
More episodes of Keen On America
- A $14 Billion Glitter Glue Gospel: Michael Blanding on the Wealthiest Christian Nationalist Family You've Never Heard Of
- Homer's Hollywood Odyssey: Joel Christensen on How Christopher Nolan Gave Us the Odysseus We Deserve
- Trump Points, Justice Shoots: Jonathan Rauch Looks Back (Without Anger) at the First Six Months of 2026
- We All Hallucinate Reality: Turi Munthe on Why We Think What We Think
- Who's Addicted to Addiction? Sally Satel on the Social Media Trials & America's Therapeutic Culture
- The Art Restorer Who Came in From the Cold: Daniel Silva on Gabriel Allon, the Truest Fake Spy
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Keen On America podcast page.