Jill Lepore says Silicon Valley is building a state

In a new interview, the historian argues tech firms are taking on government-like roles without public consent, from online speech to local data center fights.

In her upcoming book, historian Jill Lepore argues that Silicon Valley is doing more than building products. She says tech companies are gradually taking on roles once reserved for democratic government, creating what she calls an “artificial state” — a system in which rules, services, and even political power are increasingly shaped by corporations, algorithms, and machines.

Lepore made that case in a conversation on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, where she discussed the ideas behind her book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State. As IT-PUB News notes, her argument is not a rejection of technology itself. Instead, she says the deeper problem is that private companies have begun performing functions of the state without public consent.

Lepore frames the “artificial state” as a political shift

Lepore defines the artificial state as a replacement for the liberal democratic nation-state in the United States and elsewhere. In her view, it is both a practical reality and a long-developing idea.

She traces that idea through science fiction and political thought, arguing that the appeal of machine-led governance has been building for decades. Some tech leaders, she says, now talk as if the nation-state is outdated. In her account, that reflects a deliberate turn over the last 20 to 25 years, not a purely accidental change.

She also said many early technology projects were sold in terms of speed, efficiency, and lower costs. Over time, though, she believes those tools became tied to a broader shift of power away from governments and toward corporations.

Why Lepore sees a democratic risk

Lepore says her concern is not with computers, the internet, or social media as tools. Her objection is to the way companies have come to carry out functions that once belonged to elected institutions.

In her telling, that transfer of power happened gradually, first in the United States and then more widely. People did not explicitly agree to this arrangement, she argues, yet it has become part of how many countries now operate.

She describes the result in stark terms: a return to “tyranny and mystification” through rule by algorithms, corporations, and machines. For Lepore, the issue is not just who builds these systems, but who gets to decide how they shape everyday life.

That concern runs through her broader view of the digital environment. If private companies become the main organizers of communication, information, and public services, the line between business and government can start to blur — and that can be hard to undo.

Musk, Altman and a science-fiction worldview

Lepore also links today’s tech culture to science fiction, arguing that some Silicon Valley leaders seem to read old warning stories as if they were blueprints.

She pointed to Elon Musk as an example of someone whose fascination with futuristic ideas, in her view, clashes with his political beliefs. Some tech leaders, she said, appear to be drawing from pulp science fiction and comic books without fully understanding the warnings built into those stories.

Her book also examines the way companies borrow the language and imagery of government. Lepore cited examples such as Facebook News creating a “Supreme Court,” Anthropic hiring a moral philosopher to write a constitution, and Sam Altman saying on Joe Rogan that an AI president would be a great idea.

Those examples may sound absurd, she said, but to her they show how tech companies have started adopting the symbolism and functions of democratic institutions. In her view, that creates a cartoon version of state power that still carries real influence.

Twitter became political without being democratic

Lepore also used Twitter as an example of how a platform can slide into political importance without ever being built as a democratic tool.

She said Twitter started as a playful service, not as a project meant to save democracy. Over time, politicians and campaigns used it to amplify their messages and reach audiences directly. That helped the company present itself as a kind of digital town hall.

Lepore rejected that idea. She said the platform was never a representative snapshot of the electorate. At the time she discussed, only one in five Americans had a Twitter account, most account holders rarely used it, and more than 90% of political tweets came from fewer than 10% of active users.

In her view, that made Twitter a distortion machine rather than a public square. If elected officials used it to gauge public opinion, she said, they were working from bad information.

She suggested the same pattern appears when companies market their products as tools for democracy while mainly trying to grow users and revenue. In her account, the democratic effects are often secondary and unintended.

Data center fights show the issue at ground level

The conversation also turned to the backlash around data centers. Lepore said these disputes show what happens when large technology projects are pushed into local communities.

She described town and county meetings where residents ask about energy use, water consumption, jobs, and environmental impact. Those are not abstract concerns in her view. They are practical questions about who benefits, who pays, and what kind of future is being built.

Lepore said the decline of local newspapers and journalism has made these conflicts harder to manage because communities have less independent reporting on what is being proposed. She also pointed to cases where representatives back projects even when local residents are opposed.

She cited Salt Lake as an example, saying that well over 70% of people were opposed to a data center there while their representatives supported it. For Lepore, that gap points to a failure of representation, not just a planning dispute.

Lepore argues for democratic limits, not a tech ban

Lepore does not lay out a detailed political roadmap for dismantling the system she criticizes. Instead, she says the answer lies in preserving democratic decision-making and making sure major choices are made in consultation with the people affected.

That is where the practical stakes of her argument come into focus. If governments outsource too many core functions to private companies, citizens may lose influence over issues that shape housing, healthcare, energy use, and local development.

She said the artificial state is incomplete and ultimately unsustainable because it depends on the natural world while also damaging it. In her view, a habitable planet cannot survive full reliance on the devices and systems this model requires.

Her comments leave the debate centered less on technology alone than on power — who gets to define progress, and how far efficiency should be allowed to outrun democratic consent.