Dr. Jill Lepore on why the AI backlash is vital for the future
Summary
This episode centers on Jill Lepore’s idea of the "Artificial State," a system in which functions once associated with the liberal nation-state are increasingly absorbed by private corporations and platform companies. The conversation traces how tools like polling, data mining, micro-targeting, and AI-driven sorting have transformed politics by reducing people into quantifiable data rather than treating them as full civic participants. It also follows the history of computing from the personal computer to the internet, social media, and AI, arguing that each wave promised democratization but often ended up concentrating power. A major thread is the advertising-driven business model behind platforms, which incentivizes surveillance, segmentation, and the flattening of identity into marketable categories. The episode closes with a defense of embodied, local, in-person democratic life as the strongest source of resistance to corporate overreach and AI-driven governance.
Key Takeaways
- 1The "Artificial State" is Lepore’s term for a political order where corporations take over functions once handled by the nation-state.
- 2Systemic measurement tools such as polling, data mining, micro-targeting, and AI sorting reshape politics by flattening human beings into data.
- 3The history of computing is presented as a recurring pattern: each technological wave promised democratization but often concentrated power instead.
- 4Targeted advertising is identified as a core business model that turns users into consumers and enables over-sorting by traits like race and gender.
- 5Meaningful resistance to AI and corporate overreach may come most strongly from local, physical communities rather than institutional or platform-based processes.
- 6Tech companies’ appeals to 'democracy' in AI governance can be misleading when they reduce participation to data collection or user input.
Notable Quotes
""What I mean by the Artificial State is a state in which more and more of the functions of the nation state have been taken over by private multinational corporations.""
""There are far more bots than humans on those platforms.""
""And those bots are many of them are owned by corporations and have particular act, their own kind of financial interest, but their own by state actors and non-state actors and criminals and terrorists.""
""What polling does gradually over the middle decades of the 20th century is replaces the kind of door to door precinct walking that, you know, campaigns would need to do.""
""Yes, to both. I mean, it is self-serving on their part and this goes pretty far back.""
""They did all these experiments. Like, for sure, I think the individual is involved in the democratic outputs inputs project for Open AI and the collective constitutional project for anthropic.""
""That was basically just turning people into data points.""
""People have to be in a room together. They need to talk to one another. There needs to be a process.""
Episode questions
What does LePore mean by the 'Artificial State'?
She means a version of the state where corporate platforms and other private actors absorb functions once associated with the liberal nation-state. In her view, public discourse, political communication, and even civic decision-making have increasingly been privatized.
Why does LePore think polling and targeting changed politics so profoundly?
They replaced direct human contact—like precinct walking and community conversations—with data extraction and automated inference. She argues that this weakens the civic relationships that used to hold civil society together.
How does the episode connect identity politics to technology?
LePore argues that computer-driven sorting and targeting help create blocs of people who are treated as market or political segments. The host partly pushes back, suggesting identity politics also has roots beyond technology.
Where does the conversation see hope for resisting the artificial state?
The strongest hope is in physical, local, collective action: students booing AI at graduations, community opposition to data centers, and ordinary people gathering in real spaces. The episode suggests that embodied public life still matters more than platform-mediated life.