Historian Jill Lepore: Silicon Valley's sci-fi fantasies are undermining democracy
Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy
In her upcoming book 'The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,' historian Jill Lepore warns that tech companies are increasingly replacing democratic government functions, marking 'a return to tyranny and mystification in the form of rule by algorithms, corporations, machines.' On the TechCrunch Equity podcast, she discusses how Silicon Valley leaders like Elon Musk and Sam Altman, misreading science fiction, are ushering in a future that defies their own political beliefs, and argues that private corporations have usurped state roles without consent.
My beef is the ways in which private corporations have increasingly taken on the functions of the state.