- The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State , by Liveright \ (W. W. Norton & Company) by prominent American historian and academic \ \Jill Lepore \ \, professor of history at Harvard University and regular author of New Yorker*, is one of the most important intellectual and critical works addressing the interplay between technology and politics.In this work, Jill Libor continues her landmark project of dismantling American power structures, institutions, and societal transformations, highlighting the central phenomenon that dominates the twenty-first century: the rise of artificial intelligence and automation, and how the handing over of algorithms to the management of societies led to the emergence of what she calls the “artificial state.”Libor defines an “artificial state” as an alternative system of government and authoritarianism in which the social contract and the consent-based liberal democracy of the governed are replaced by a system of automated governance managed and controlled by algorithms owned by tech giants and Silicon Valley billionaire entrepreneurs.Libor defines an “artificial state” as an alternative system of government and authoritarianism in which the social contract and the consent-based liberal democracy of the governed are replaced by a system of automated governance managed and controlled by algorithms owned by tech giants and Silicon Valley billionaire entrepreneurs.
Jill Libor exploits her tools as a historian to establish that the rise of artificial intelligence and the artificial state was not a technological inevitability, but the product of a century of intellectual and political decisions.The book offers a qualitative and pivotal addition to the technical and policy literature. Jill Libor demonstrates an extraordinary ability to combine historical depth with sober literary style, putting before the reader a comprehensive analysis linking political philosophy, the history of science, and social criticism.
The book represents a warning cry and a response to contemporary societies; it shows that the future is not a fate written in code, but an arena of human will and free theoretical thinking.
