The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore review – an ominous warning of tech takeover
Jill Lepore's new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, argues that a handful of powerful Silicon Valley figures are pursuing a vision in which democracy, the nation-state and even humanity itself are supplanted by automation and artificial intelligence. The Pulitzer prize-winning historian contends this is not merely speculative fantasy but an active project among tech billionaires whose priorities diverge from the wellbeing of the planet and its people, making the book a timely warning about the erosion of liberal democracy by unchecked corporate and technological power.
The review highlights Lepore's argument that public discourse has already shifted onto privately owned, attention-monetising platforms such as X, which are exploited by bots to spread polarising content. She names figures including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Sam Altman, accusing them of prioritising space travel and the AI arms race with China over pressing concerns like climate change, with fantasies of escaping to Mars or bunkers once the damage is done. Lepore draws on historical parallels, from the Mesopotamian origins of the census to cold war science fiction, though the reviewer notes she stops short of outright AI doomerism, instead blaming the absence of democratic strategy for managing the technology.
- Historian Jill Lepore warns tech billionaires are pursuing an anti-democratic "Artificial State".
- Book links social media manipulation and AI ambitions to erosion of liberal democracy.
- Lepore blames lack of democratic strategy, not technology itself, as the core problem.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates of Lepore's warning argue that a handful of technology companies and executives now wield power over communication, information and even political discourse that rivals or exceeds that of elected governments, without the accountability, transparency or checks that democratic institutions are meant to provide. They contend that history shows concentrated, unaccountable power – whether corporate or state – tends to erode individual liberty and democratic self-governance, and that artificial intelligence, by automating decisions over speech, employment and public opinion, could entrench this shift in ways that are difficult to reverse once normalised. On this view, sounding the alarm now, while the trajectory can still be shaped by regulation, public pressure or institutional reform, is a responsible and urgent act of civic vigilance rather than alarmism.
The case against
Critics of this kind of dystopian framing argue that it risks overstating the inevitability of a 'tech takeover' and understating the resilience of democratic institutions, courts, elections and civil society, which have repeatedly adapted to previous waves of technological disruption from radio to the internet. They point out that technology companies operate within markets, face competition, regulation and public backlash, and that conflating corporate influence with the kind of coercive power wielded by states can exaggerate the threat while obscuring the genuine benefits AI and digital platforms provide to innovation, communication and economic growth. On this view, such warnings, however well-intentioned, can foster unwarranted fatalism or justify heavy-handed regulatory responses that stifle beneficial innovation without proportionate evidence that democratic collapse is actually imminent.