Jill Lepore Warns 20- to 25-Year Tech Power Grab Undermines Democracy

2 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Aug 9

Jill Lepore says her upcoming book argues private tech companies have steadily taken over state functions, creating an “artificial state” that replaces liberal democracy with rule by algorithms, corporations and machines.
The Harvard historian traces the shift from largely accidental efficiency-driven outsourcing to what she says became a deliberate usurpation over the past 20 to 25 years, pushed by entrepreneurs openly hostile to the nation-state.
Lepore points to examples from Facebook’s quasi-“Supreme Court” to Anthropic’s AI “constitution” and Sam Altman’s talk of an AI president as signs Silicon Valley is adopting the trappings of government.
She argues this outcome was not inevitable, citing policy choices such as the 1996 Telecommunications Act and the way platforms like Twitter evolved into political distortion machines rather than democratic town halls.
Lepore says resistance will depend on democratic oversight of projects such as data centers, warning that the broader “artificial state” is ultimately unsustainable because it consumes the natural and civic foundations it needs to survive.