Historian Lepore: Silicon Valley misreads sci-fi, harms democracy
Original: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy
Why This Matters
The book frames AI and Big Tech governance as a structural democratic crisis, not merely a regulatory debate.
Harvard historian Jill Lepore, in her upcoming book 'The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,' argues that Silicon Valley tech companies are replacing democratic government functions with corporate rule driven by algorithms and machines, calling it 'a return to tyranny and mystification.'
Harvard historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore is releasing a new book titled 'The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,' in which she argues that private tech corporations are gradually supplanting the functions of liberal democratic nation-states. Speaking on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Lepore described this shift as 'a return to tyranny and mystification in the form of rule by algorithms, corporations, machines.' She emphasized that her critique is not anti-technology: 'My beef is the ways in which private corporations have increasingly taken on the functions of the state. No one consented to that.' Lepore, who is married to a computer scientist, said she traces the philosophical roots of 'government by machines' back centuries, while noting that many Silicon Valley leaders — particularly Elon Musk — appear to be driving toward a future modeled on misread pulp science fiction and comic books. 'What's funny about Musk is, the stuff he likes actually completely defeats and defies all of his political beliefs,' she said. The conversation also touched on Apple's iconic '1984' Macintosh ad, the idea of calling X (formerly X) a 'digital town hall' — which Lepore called 'bananas' — and growing public backlash against data centers.