普利策奖得主、哈佛历史学家和《纽约客》撰稿人Jill Lepore在其新著《人工国家的兴衰》中提出，科技公司正在逐步接管民主政府的职能[1]。她指出硅谷的AI领袖常常将技术进步与政治进步混为一谈，声称人工智能将使政府运作更为高效，但这些承诺实际上是历来科技乌托邦幻想的新版本[1]。
Lepore通过具体案例揭示了这一现象。她举Twitter的"口袋里的城镇广场"和Anthropic的Claude宪法等为例，说明科技公司如何通过特定的语言叙事来推进其愿景[1]。她还将当代AI的言辞与1984年麦金托什广告等科技历史时刻进行对比[1]。Lepore引用了E.M. Forster 1909年的科幻小说《机器停止了》作为现代人工国家概念的蓝图[1]，认为许多硅谷领导者未能认识到他们正在重复经典科幻作品中所警示的陷阱。
Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Jill Lepore contends in her new book The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State that technology companies are gradually assuming functions traditionally reserved for democratic governments.[1] According to Lepore, who is a Harvard historian and contributor to The New Yorker, Silicon Valley's leaders frequently conflate technological advancement with political progress.[1]
Lepore criticizes contemporary AI executives for promising that artificial intelligence will make government more efficient, characterizing such claims as repackaged versions of longstanding technological fantasies.[1] She illustrates her argument by comparing modern AI rhetoric to historical examples including the 1984 Macintosh advertisement and references specific contemporary instances such as Twitter's marketing of its platform as a "town hall in your pocket" and Anthropic's Claude constitution.[1] Lepore invokes E.M. Forster's 1909 science fiction story The Machine Stops as a cautionary blueprint for what she terms the "artificial state."[1]