Keen On

When somebody says “win-win” in Silicon Valley, check your pockets. It’s usually some elaborate prelude to a sales pitch. And the only thing dodgier than a two-way win is the “win-win-win” narrative that my friend Keith Teare is selling this week. “User, Publishers and AI: Everybody Wins” is the title of Keith’s That Was The Week newsletter this week. And to be fair, what he’s selling is the dream of an AI world in which the publishers, consumers and manufacturers of information all win. Who wouldn’t want that? Our conversation this week is built around the AI ethics showdown by Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz which has shaken Silicon Valley this week. The battle centers on whether AI agents should identify themselves when accessing publisher content - a seemingly technical question that reveals broader tensions about who controls information in the age of artificial intelligence. Y Combinator’s Garry Tan called new authentication requirements an "axis of evil" while Andreessen Horowitz’s Martin Casado