tech
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.
TL;DR
- Historian Jill Lepore suggests tech companies adopt governmental functions, using lofty language to describe their products.
- Her upcoming book, 'The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,' posits that tech leaders confuse technological advancement with political progress.
- Lepore critiques AI leaders' promises of efficient and potentially unnecessary governance, viewing it as a repackaged old fantasy.
- She draws parallels between tech's ambitions and classic science fiction, like E.M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops.'
- Lepore believes the 'artificial state' is unsustainable and discusses potential ways to regulate it.