Jill Lepore on the ‘Artificial State’ and why Silicon Valley’s leaders are bad sci-fi readers
Historian Jill Lepore has a theory about why tech companies often use soaring language to describe their products — almost as if they’re forming a new government. And whether you’re thinking of Twitter’s old “town hall in your pocket” or Anthropic’s Claude constitution, it’s a theory that doesn’t paint Silicon Valley in a very flattering light. In Lepore’s upcoming book, Th
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Historian Jill Lepore argues in her upcoming book that tech companies are gradually assuming the functions of democratic government, from shaping political discourse to displacing local news. She contends that tech leaders often confuse technological progress with political progress while claiming they want to replace the nation-state, and that today's AI leaders are promoting the same old fantasy in new forms, such as promises that AI will make government more efficient or unnecessary. Lepore sees connections between how tech companies use grandiose language to describe their products, examples ranging from a classic 1984 advertisement to recent statements about AI constitutions and an "AI president," and historical sci-fi visions of an artificial state. She believes this artificial state is ultimately unsustainable, though the source does not detail what she thinks would be needed to address it.
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