Historian frames AI surge as a governance crisis, not a tech race

Jill Lepore’s interview and upcoming book offer a historian’s frame for the AI moment: the rapid, heedless rise of an 'Artificial State' — a fusion of corporate power and automated governance that mimics state functions without democratic accountability. This is not a tech story; it is a constitutional one. Lepore draws on parallels to earlier eras of corporate dominance, arguing that the current AI surge is less about innovation than about unchecked power. The key actors are not just OpenAI or Meta but the entire ecosystem of tech titans — including Elon Musk, whose 'failed ideas' she critiques — who have built systems that reshape labor, public discourse, and government itself without electoral consent.

Daylight sees this as a missing frame in the current policy debate. The administration’s posture of 'industry-led' AI oversight, exemplified by deregulation pushes and the sidelining of safety boards, is itself a form of statecraft — delegating sovereign functions to private hands. Lepore’s warning that 'few grand transformations have been more precipitate or more heedless' directly applies to ongoing federal actions like the pullback on algorithmic accountability and the refusal to fund NIST’s AI safety benchmarks. The progressive alternative is not just more regulation but a reclaiming of democratic sovereignty over these systems — treating AI as a public utility rather than a private dominion.