Jon Stewart hosted FTC Chairman Lina Khan on his weekly show yesterday, but Stewart’s own revelations were just as funny as Khan’s. During the sit-down, Stewart admitted that Apple’s request that he not host Khan on the podcast was an extension of his life. Jon Stewart Questions Apple TV+ show at the time.
“I wanted to get you on the podcast, but Apple asked us not to do that,” Stewart told Khan. “They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her.'”
In fact, there seemed to be a theme of “things Apple would make us do” throughout the episode. Before his interview with Khan, Stewart did a segment about artificial intelligence, which he called “the false promises of AI,” effectively dismissing the altruistic claims of AI leaders and arguing that AI is designed to be rigorous is to replace human workers.
“They wouldn’t even let us do the stupid thing we did in Act 1 of AI,” he told Khan. “Like, what is this sensitivity? Why are they so afraid of having these conversations in the public sphere?”
“I think it just goes to show what the dangers are when you concentrate so much power and so many decisions in just a few companies,” Khan responded.
Jon Stewart Questions The show was reportedly abruptly canceled before the start of its third season due to conflicts over potential artificial intelligence and the Chinese segment. That prompted U.S. lawmakers to question Apple, trying to understand whether the decision was related to possible criticism of China.
The bipartisan committee wrote that while Apple has the right to broadcast whatever content it wants, “coercive tactics by foreign powers should not directly or indirectly influence these decisions.” (Apple’s response, if any, has not yet been released.)
Stewart didn’t say the AI and Khan interview issues were the reason his show was canceled, but they do show that Apple claims editorial influence over issues that directly involve it.
Elsewhere in the segment, Khan discusses the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon, noting that the FTC accuses the company of maintaining a monopoly through illegal practices (exorbitant seller fees, questionable advertising). They also talked about the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against Facebook, collusion between technology companies through artificial intelligence, corporate mergers, excessive drug prices and other issues.
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