Jill Lepore warns automation is replacing democratic decision making

In short: Historian Jill Lepore’s upcoming book argues that democracy is being pushed aside by what she calls the “Artificial State,” where more public decisions are made by automated systems and large corporations.

What happened

Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian, has a new book coming out on August 25, 2026. It is titled The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State. The U.S. publisher is Liveright, an imprint of Norton, and Allen Lane is listed for the U.K. edition.

In the book, Lepore describes the “Artificial State” as a shift in how countries are run. She argues that more and more jobs that used to be handled by elected officials and public agencies are being handed to private multinational companies and machine-run systems.

She connects this idea to “automatocracy,” which she defines as rule by automation. In plain terms, it is when computers are used to calculate, predict, and influence decisions in politics and public life. It is like moving from government by representatives to government by scorecards and auto-approvals (as if society is run the way a customer service system routes your call).

Lepore also says this future is not unavoidable. She argues people can push back through democratic choices and stronger public institutions. The book places today’s concerns in a longer history, drawing on political thinker Hannah Arendt and earlier warnings about automation, propaganda, and the loss of human judgment.

Why it matters

The book’s core claim is simple: when societies let machines, and the companies behind them, make more of the important choices, it can weaken the democratic idea that people should govern themselves through laws and elected leaders.

Source: NYTimes