Jon Stewart revealed last night what led to his abrupt exit from Apple and the cancellation of his short-lived show on its streaming TV platform -- basically, they wouldn't let him discuss artificial intelligence or interview consumer shero Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan. Via CNN:
Khan was a guest on Stewart’s Comedy Central program, which he returned to in February and hosts on Mondays. Stewart and Khan discussed Big Tech monopolies, after the US Justice Department and more than a dozen states sued Apple last month in a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit that accused Apple of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market.
Stewart said he had his own issues with Apple, telling Khan that he wanted to have her on the TV show’s companion podcast and “Apple asked us not do it.”
“They literally said ‘please don’t talk to her,’” Stewart said. “Having nothing to do with what you do for a living, I don’t think they cared for you.”
Although Khan’s FTC is not involved in the Apple antitrust lawsuit, the regulator has sued a number of tech companies recently, including Amazon.
Stewart also said that Apple wouldn’t let him talk about AI, which of course he did last night.
“What is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to have these conversations out in the public sphere?” he asked Khan. “I think it just shows the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision making in a small number of companies,” she replied.
