{"id":243704,"date":"2026-09-19T09:09:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T09:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=243704"},"modified":"2026-09-18T19:12:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T19:12:56","slug":"is-democracy-only-a-paper-thing-now-harvard-historian-warns-against-the-rule-of-private-ai-corporations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/is-democracy-only-a-paper-thing-now-harvard-historian-warns-against-the-rule-of-private-ai-corporations\/","title":{"rendered":"Is democracy only a paper thing now? Harvard historian warns against the rule of private AI corporations."},"content":{"rendered":"

Democracy isn’t necessarily abolished by a coup d’\u00e9tat<\/em>. It can also be eroded by the gradual transfer of its functions to private technology companies. Harvard historian Jill Lepore warns against precisely this development \u2013 and much of what she describes is no longer just a future possibility.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Who decides which news we see? Who determines which information is considered relevant? Who controls the digital spaces where political debates take place? And who will determine the rules by which artificial intelligence makes decisions about people in the future?<\/p>\n

Increasingly, the answer is: not the citizens, but companies.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with the podcast Hard Fork<\/em>, Lepore describes the emergence of an \u201cartificial state<\/em>.\u201d She refers to a society in which state and societal functions are increasingly mediated by technical systems owned by private corporations. The historian sees this as a threat to constitutional democracy because power shifts from democratically controlled institutions to companies whose leaders are not elected.<\/p>\n

Taking power doesn’t require a tank.<\/p>\n

What’s worrying about Lepore’s warning is that she doesn’t describe a sudden collapse. The change is taking place in everyday life. People get their news from platforms, let algorithms select political content for them, communicate via private digital infrastructures, and increasingly turn to AI systems when they need information or decisions.<\/p>\n

This creates a new dependency: whoever controls the infrastructure can also determine the conditions under which people communicate, inform themselves, and participate in social life.<\/p>\n

Lepore therefore poses a simple but fundamental question: \u201cWho actually decided that we should live this way?<\/em>\u201d The introduction of ever newer technological systems is often portrayed as inevitable progress. But the citizens were never fundamentally asked whether they wanted a society in which more and more areas of life are mediated by privately controlled machines.<\/p>\n

Citizens are turned into manageable data sets.<\/p>\n

Lepore’s comparison to \u201cfactory farming<\/em>\u201d is particularly drastic. As early as 2024, she described the industrial organization of public life as a process in which people are sorted, segmented, isolated, and alienated from one another.<\/p>\n

The metaphor is deliberately provocative. It doesn’t mean that people are literally kept like livestock. It describes a society in which people are increasingly treated as data points, user profiles, and target groups \u2013 analysable, categorizable, and malleable.<\/p>\n

This is precisely where the political dimension of AI lies. The technology can analyse enormous amounts of data, predict behaviour, personalize content, and automate decisions. What is sold as convenience and efficiency can simultaneously expand the possibilities for surveillance and behavioural control considerably.<\/p>\n

The development is already underway.<\/p>\n

Lepore explicitly emphasizes that the artificial state is not yet fully realized. However, she sees its emergence already taking place in today’s digital infrastructure. AI is accelerating a development that began long ago with the increasing power of communication platforms and the privatization of societal functions.<\/p>\n

This can be observed in the present day: private platforms determine the reach and visibility of information. AI systems are used in companies and government agencies to support decision-making. Digital identity, data, and surveillance infrastructures are being expanded. More and more people are dependent on just a few providers to communicate, work, or obtain information.<\/p>\n

Not every one of these applications is automatically undemocratic. However, taken together, they create a concentration of power that poses new problems for democratic control. An elected parliament can be voted out of office, but the owners of digital infrastructure cannot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is inevitable\u201d \u2013 the most dangerous argument<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lepore criticizes in particular the claim that AI is unstoppable anyway and that government regulation would only stifle innovation. This argument reduces political decisions to mere technical necessities.<\/p>\n

But technology doesn’t develop in isolation from society. People decide which systems are built, who finances them, which rules apply, and where their limits lie.<\/p>\n

Lepore also considers the promise that new technologies will automatically create more democracy to be questionable. Similar hopes were already associated with the internet and virtual communication networks. Today, it is becoming clear that these same technologies can also concentrate power, fragment public debate, and facilitate surveillance.<\/p>\n

Democracy can survive \u2013 and still lose its power<\/strong><\/p>\n

The real danger lies in the fact that democratic institutions formally continue to exist while their practical significance diminishes. Parliaments meet, governments are elected, and citizens are allowed to vote. But more and more decisions concerning information, communication, and social participation are prepared or mediated by systems whose functioning and ownership elude direct democratic control.<\/p>\n

This is not a claim that a unified secret plan to abolish democracy has already been proven. It is a description of a real shift in power, the consequences of which are hardly being discussed sufficiently in political discourse.<\/p>\n

If democracy no longer controls its digital infrastructure, it will in the long term also lose control over the conditions under which democratic decision-making can even take place.<\/p>\n

Lepore’s warning is therefore far more than an academic vision of the future. It is directed against a development that has already begun: the creeping shift of societal power from citizens and public institutions to private technology corporations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yogaesoteric
\nSeptember 19, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democracy isn’t necessarily abolished by a coup d’\u00e9tat. It can also be eroded by the gradual transfer of its functions to private technology companies. Harvard historian Jill Lepore warns against precisely this development \u2013 and much of what she describes is no longer just a future possibility. Who decides which news we see? Who determines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-threat-of-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243708,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243704\/revisions\/243708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}