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DEEPSEEK AND THE NOT-SO-SPUTNIK MOMENT

February 5, 2025 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what really worries Silicon Valley about DeepSeek, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 2 February 2025, under the headline “DeepSeek has ripped away AI’s veil of mystique. That’s the real reason the tech bros fear it”. No, it was not a “Sputnik moment”. The launch last month of DeepSeek R1, the Chinese generative AI or chatbot, created mayhem in the tech world, with stocks plummeting and much chatter about the US losing its supremacy in AI […]

Categories: Science & Technology • Tags: china, artificial intelligence, elon musk, sputnik, ai, sam altman, sputnik moment, deepseek, ai hallucinations, artificial general intelligence, agi, geoff hinton, ai hype, gary marcus

REWRITING THE HISTORY OF HOW GROOMING GANGS WERE EXPOSED

January 15, 2025 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the women who first exposed the story of the grooming gangs, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 12 January 2025, under the headline “The right is trying to rewrite history with its toxic rhetoric on Britain’s rape gangs”. “It has taken a man of Elon Musk’s influence to drag this into the light,” claims the Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe. The US tech entrepreneur’s discovery of Britain’s grooming gangs scandal, and his tirade of derogatory tweets directed […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Women • Tags: anna hall, elon musk, grooming gangs, julie bindel, matt goodwin, muslim women's network, rape gangs, samira ahmed, suzanne moore

THE ELITE WAR OVER VISAS

January 8, 2025 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the fractious battle among Donald Trump supporters over H-1B visas, was published in the Observer on 5 January 2025 under the headline “Forget talk of defending workers, the US visa feud is about the market’s needs”. On the one side stand Silicon Valley moguls and leaders of corporate America; on the other, longstanding Donald Trump loyalists and supporters of the Maga (“Make America great again”) movement. One side claims to be building America’s bright new future by recruiting the best talent […]

Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: donald trump, elon musk, h-1b visa, immigration, laura loomer, maga, sohrab ahmari, vivek ramaswamy

TAKING ON AMAZON

November 20, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the struggle to unionise an Amazon warehouse, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 November 2024, under the headline “How a small group of Amazon workers took on big business and challenged traditional unions”. “The union wants to protect workers. The employer wants to protect workers. How do I choose between them?” So asks one young worker in Union, a documentary about the battle to unionise an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, New York. It is a […]

Categories: Class, International, Justice & Liberties • Tags: alu, amazon, amazon labor union, brett story, chris smalls, class solidarity, donald trump, elon musk, jeff bezos, stanley aronowitz, stephen maing, trade unions, union busting, unionisation

SPRINGFIELD AND THE MEMEFICATION OF POLITICS

September 18, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the claims about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, tells us about politics, was published in the Observer on 15 September 2024 under the headline “Trump’s fantasy that migrants are eating cats proves the meme has prevailed over real politics”. If one town could be emblematic of the vicissitudes of blue-collar life in America, Springfield, Ohio, might be as good a pick as any. At the heart of the midwest, Springfield’s prosperity was built on manufacturing and publishing. […]

Categories: International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: donald trump, eating pets, elon musk, great replacement theory, haitian immigrants, immigrants, immigration panics, jd vance, memefication, memeification, nathan clark, racism, springfield, white identity

FEAR OF DEMOCRACY AS FEAR OF TECHNOLOGY

March 13, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what lies beneath existential fears of AI, was published in the Observer on 10 March 2024 under the headline “Elon Musk v OpenAI: tech giants are inciting existential fears to evade scrutiny”. In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, HG Wells published a novel about the possibilities of an even greater conflagration. The World Set Free imagines, 30 years before the Manhattan Project, the creation of atomic weapons that allow “a man [to] carry about in a handbag […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: ai, algorithmic bias, artificial intelligence, beatrice webb, chaptgpt, democracy, elon musk, hg wells, openai, sam altman, surveillance

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND HUMAN EXPLOITATION

November 29, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the dangers of AI, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 26 November 2023, under the headline “AI doesn’t cause harm by itself. We should worry about the people who control it“. At times it felt less like Succession than Fawlty Towers, not so much Shakespearean tragedy as Laurel and Hardy farce. OpenAI is the hottest tech company today thanks to the success of its most famous product, the chatbot ChatGPT. It was inevitable that the mayhem surrounding the sacking, and […]

Categories: Science & Technology • Tags: ai, algorithmic bias, chatgpt, elon musk, grady booch, microsoft, openai, sam altman

THE TWITTER FILES BEYOND THE CULTURE WARS

January 5, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the significance of the Twitter Files, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 1 January 2023, under the headline “The Twitter Files should disturb liberal critics of Elon Musk – and here’s why”. Half the room is jumping up and down, screaming “Gotcha!”. The other half shrugs its shoulders, muttering “So what’s new?”. Welcome to the war over the so-called Twitter Files. Over the past month, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, has made available to a handpicked […]

Categories: Free Speech, Science & Technology • Tags: algorithmic bias, censorship, culture wars, deamplification, elon musk, fbi, liberties, surveillance, the twitter files, twitter

THE SHALLOWNESS OF TODAY’S WOULD-BE MESSIAHS

November 24, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the mystique of Elon Musk, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 20 November 2022, under the headline “Beware self-made ‘genius’ entrepreneurs promising the earth. Just look at Elon Musk”. Trussonomics trashed within eight weeks. Donald Trump’s anointed candidates cut down in the US midterms. Sam Bankman-Fried, the poster boy of the crypto world, collapsing into bankruptcy. Elon Musk throwing Twitter into turmoil. The bursting of myths and the shredding of reputations seem to be the themes of the […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: elon musk, sam bankman-fried, spacex, technology, tesla, twitter

THE NEED FOR AN INTELLIGENT DEBATE ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

February 25, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on fears about AI, was the main part of my Observer column this week. (The column included also a shorter piece on the latest migration figures.) It was published in the Observer, 25 February 2018, under the headline ‘Worry less about the march of the robots, more about the techno panic’. A robot cleaner infiltrates Germany’s ministry of finance by blending in with the pool of legitimate machines. After initially performing routine cleaning tasks, the robot, using facial recognition, […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: artificial intelligence, deepfake, elon musk, fake news, liberties, stephen hawking, terrorism