Who Owns Intelligence? The Smart Wealth of Nations

**Andrew Keen** (0:00)
Hello, my name is Andrew Keen. Welcome to Keen On America, the daily interview show about the United States.
Hello, everybody. It is Saturday, the 18th of July.
Last week, it's time, of course, for our weekly Tech Roundup with That Was The Week publisher, Keith Teare. Last week, he or we asked what time it was, and we concluded that it was a revolutionary moment, but maybe one that wasn't gonna turn into a revolution. We headlined the show, 10 Days That Didn't Shake or Change the World, and Keith remarked that it was rather like 1905, the failed Russian Revolution as opposed to 1917 The revolution, of course, both the failed revolution of 5 and of 17 was all about property ownership. Who should own the means of production, both the land and the factories in Russia? We're back to the question of ownership and property. But for the AI age, and this week Keith's editorial asks, who owns intelligence? He sees this as the central question. He argues this week the word AI feels too small. The bigger question is simpler and more political. Who owns intelligence, Keith? So what's the argument this week? Who should indeed own intelligence? I like your replacement. I couldn't agree more that intelligence is a better word than AI, thinking more historically in a meta sense.

**Keith Teare** (2:06)
Yeah, AI is the tool for both harvesting and delivering intelligence. But the thing in and of itself is intelligence. And it's a much better framing because intelligence captures the entire history of humanity. I know that you hate that word humanity.

**Andrew Keen** (2:26)
Yeah, I hate that. Well, enough patting yourself on the back. We've agreed that intelligence is a better word than AI.

**Keith Teare** (2:34)
But I think it's important why it's better. It's better because it's totally clear that no one owns intelligence. No single entity could own intelligence because it is the sum total of our common experience and the future of it. So once you frame it as intelligence being bottled, if you will, then it would be a little like somebody taking on a ship with a water supply on the earth and forcing us to buy it from them, as they do in these plastic bottles.
That being the only way to get water.

**Andrew Keen** (3:12)
Yeah, so you're presenting, but it's interesting because we perhaps come to the implications. You bring up water and electricity. But that suggests to me, at least reading your editorial, that you're suggesting that intelligence is a utility, maybe a super utility, maybe a remarkably unique utility, but nonetheless a utility.

**Keith Teare** (3:34)
Well, utility might be too narrow a word, because we're already going down the municipal ownership route, as soon as you say utility. I think it's just a word that sums up the entirety of human experience.
Because of that, the idea that it could be owned is already a bizarre idea.

**Andrew Keen** (4:01)
Although I don't want to turn this into an argument between you and I and your friend, Elon Musk. But Tim O'Reilly has a very strong editorial this week in The Economist. And he quotes Elon Musk, who argued that SpaceX will become worth more than the rest of the Earth. I mean, it's very much of a Muskian comment. So not everyone would agree with you that intelligence could be owned. I assume that Musk thinks that if SpaceX essentially owns intelligence, then it will be worth more than the rest of the Earth.

**Keith Teare** (4:38)
Well, so that's a measure of current GDP to future GDP.
And he's saying that SpaceX will be worth more than current GDP, which, you know, 50 years from now, I wouldn't bet against that being true, but GDP will be a lot bigger by then as well. And so, it's maybe not very fruitful to go down that path. I think the more fruitful...

**Andrew Keen** (5:03)
But yeah, I mean, but I'm not sure that Musk thinks that intelligence can or should be collectively owned. A lot of the articles this week are about that. You've got a very strong one from the critic of Big Tech, Henry Farrell, and of course, the Tim O'Reilly piece. This is all about ownership. You also have your weekly Paul Krugman Substack piece. Although, you don't seem to think very highly of Krugman. So, I don't know why you're always including him in the newsletter.

**Keith Teare** (5:44)
I often include things I don't agree with. But look, here's the thing.
Intelligence has never previously been monetizable in any meta-sense. It's always been monetized by individuals, let's say professors writing books, or teachers getting paid for teaching students.