The Federal Commerce Fee – FTC (photograph by David Lat).
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Jon Stewart is again (one night time per week) on The Every day Present, no less than till the November election. Sure, it’s sending a wave of nostalgia by means of millennial and Gen X viewers. Past that, Stewart doesn’t appear to have misplaced his comedic chops, or his skill to deliver sophisticated, typically wonky, matters to the plenty.
Enter Stewart’s recent interview with Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan. Khan has been outspoken in her requires breaking apart massive tech corporations, evaluating them to Gilded Age monopolies. Below Khan the FTC has focused highly effective corporations, together with Amazon, with antitrust litigation.
Stewart mentioned antitrust points with Khan, and issues received much more attention-grabbing when the dialog turned to synthetic intelligence and its potential to displace human employees. “I wished to have you ever on a podcast, and Apple requested us to not do it,” stated Stewart, referring to restrictions his former employer positioned on the content material he was trying to place out on the subject. “Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out within the public sphere?”
Khan replied {that a} place just like the one taken by Apple “simply exhibits one of many risks of what occurs while you focus a lot energy and a lot decision-making in a small variety of corporations.” She added that all through the historical past of this nation, “there was a recognition that, in the identical approach that you simply want the structure to create checks and balances in our political sphere, you additionally wanted the antitrust and anti-monopoly legal guidelines to safeguard towards focus of financial energy.”
Properly, I assume we’re having the conversation now. Stewart has at all times been extra centered on coverage than his late-night friends. Let’s see extra of this although.
Isn’t it extra necessary – extra entertaining, even – to listen to about what a robust authorities official is doing that most likely impacts your every day life than to hearken to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson attempt to clarify the plot of Quick and Livid 37? Subsequent cease: Gary Gensler on Colbert.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and writer of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate hyperlink). He has taught authorized writing, written for all kinds of publications, and made it each his enterprise and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are most likely pure gold, however are nonetheless solely his personal and shouldn’t be attributed to any group with which he’s affiliated. He wouldn’t need to share the credit score anyway. He will be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
