Episode 2120: Simon Reynolds on reasons to be cheerful about the AI cultural revolution

Keen On

In 2011, Simon Reynolds is one of the world’s most prolific music journalists, came on KEEN ON to explain why the Internet has been bad for both musical artists and fans. Back then it took a brave man like Reynolds to argue against the supposedly cornucopian cultural potential of the Web 2 revolution. Today, in contrast, most mainstream cultural critics see the internet, and particularly the AI revolution, as a catastrophe for artists and fans. And yet Reynolds, often the cultural zigger when everyone else zags, has cheered up. In a new collection of essays, Futuromania, his first book in eight years, Reynolds is cautiously optimistic about electronic dreams, desiring machines, and tomorrow's AI revolution. AI isn’t going to destroy culture, Reynolds reassures us. It might even lead to a new renaissance of creativity, akin to punk or even the glory years of Sixties popular music.

Simon Reynolds is the author of Energy Flash: A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture, Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellions and Rock and Roll (co-written with Joy Press), Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978 – 1984, and, most recently, Bring the Noise: Twenty Years of Hip Hop and Hip Rock.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On 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