Jill Lepore on why Silicon Valley gets science fiction wrong

image via New Scientist

August 26, 2026, 5:00 PM

• •Historian Jill Lepore says the "Artificial State" is both a posthuman political fantasy and a system in which machines owned by corporations increasingly govern people without democratic consent.
• •She argues Silicon Valley misreads science fiction by focusing on robot-apocalypse plots instead of the corporate and political structures that create such systems.
• •Lepore cites E. M. Forster’s 1909 story "The Machine Stops" and writers such as Ted Chiang, Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin as more useful guides than the libertarian sci-fi favored by many tech leaders.
• •The interview links current backlash against AI data centers to a possible democratic check on the expansion of machine-centered infrastructure.
• •Lepore says opposition to data centers across U.S. communities may signal the beginning of the "fall" of the Artificial State rather than only its rise.

In an interview about her new book, historian Jill Lepore argues that the "Artificial State" is replacing democratic governance with machine systems controlled by corporations. She says Silicon Valley often misreads science fiction by obsessing over rogue robots instead of the corporate logic and libertarian politics embedded in those stories. Lepore points to writers such as E. M. Forster and Ted Chiang as better guides to understanding the present AI era. She also says growing political resistance to AI data centers in U.S. communities could mark an early backlash against this model of technological power.

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