Jill Lepore on the 'Artificial State': Why Silicon Valley’s Leaders Are Bad Sci-Fi Readers

What happens when the people building the future stop reading the stories that imagine it? According to historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore, we get something she calls the “Artificial State” — a form of governance where algorithms replace constitutions, and tech executives think they can code their way around politics. In a recent episode of the TechCrunch podcast, Lepore made a provocative argument: most of Silicon Valley’s leaders are bad readers of science fiction, and that’s not a trivial cultural critique — it’s a structural flaw that affects how AI, social media, and digital infrastructure are governed.

The conversation, titled “The Artificial State,” cuts to the heart of a familiar frustration. Tech founders love quoting science fiction — from Asimov’s Foundation to William Gibson’s Neuromancer — but they tend to read it selectively, mining it for cool gadgets and dystopian aesthetics while ignoring its deeper political themes. Lepore argues that this shallow reading turns science fiction into a mirror for tech optimism, rather than a warning system. The result is a tech elite that genuinely believes problems of power, justice, and public good can be solved with enough engineering talent and a good API.

In this article, we unpack Lepore’s critique, examine why Silicon Valley’s sci-fi literacy matters, and draw out practical lessons for anyone building or regulating technology. The good news? The fix is surprisingly simple: read better science fiction.

The Problem: What Is the “Artificial State”?

Lepore’s term, “Artificial State,” evokes the idea of a state apparatus built not on natural rights and democratic consent but on artificial constructions — code, contracts, algorithms, and terms of service. In this vision, the rule of law is replaced by the rule of models. The state’s coercive power isn’t exercised through courts and legislatures but through platform moderation, data governance, and automated decision-making. The logic of the market becomes the logic of sovereignty.

This isn’t science fiction in the usual sense. It’s already happening. Governments use predictive algorithms to allocate social services. Courts use risk assessment tools to set bail. Health agencies use contact tracing apps that quietly enroll public health in private surveillance. Tech companies make decisions that affect billions of people — decisions about speech, safety, money, and life — with almost no democratic process. Lepore’s argument is that these systems constitute a new form of the state, and the people running it are largely unaccountable.

Why does sci-fi matter here? Because the leaders of this new state were shaped by a specific literary culture. They grew up on cyberpunk and space operas, stories that glorify individual hackers, rebellion, and the acceleration of technology. They did not, for the most part, grow up reading political science fiction — the kind that asks hard questions about rights, institutions, and power. The bookshelves in Silicon Valley are full of dystopian thrillers, but the lessons drawn from them are often surprisingly naive: “1984 is about surveillance tech, so let’s build a better encrypted messaging app.” It rarely becomes: “1984 is about the fragility of democratic institutions, so let’s invest in civic education.”

Why Silicon Valley’s Leaders Are Bad Sci-Fi Readers

Lepore’s critique is a familiar one to literary scholars. She argues that the tech industry has engaged in a kind of literary cherry-picking. It celebrates Isaac Asimov’s robotics laws but overlooks the deep skepticism Asimov had about complex systems. It quotes Philip K. Dick about the nature of reality but ignores his obsession with authoritarian power. It embraces cyberpunk’s neon-and-rain aesthetic while completely missing cyberpunk’s central warning: the future is not a playground for privateers, it’s a landscape of concentrated corporate power that crushes the human spirit.

The result is a tech leadership culture that is simultaneously futuristic and historically illiterate. It overestimates the ability of technology to solve social problems and underestimates the resilience of political structures. When things go wrong — as they did with the 2021 Capitol riot, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or the various algorithmic bias controversies — tech leaders seem genuinely surprised that their systems have political consequences. They built a state, then claimed not to understand politics.

To illustrate the difference between the two reading styles, consider the following table:

The table doesn’t mean that tech-centric science fiction is worthless — it’s not. Neuromancer is a masterpiece. But when it becomes the only science fiction a leader reads, it produces a narrow imagination. A leader who reads only cyberpunk might see social media as a tool of individual liberation. A leader who also reads Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed might recognize that alternative social structures are possible — and that building them is a political, not technical, challenge.

The Solution: Reading Political Science Fiction Right

Lepore’s proposed solution is not to ban techno-thrillers but to broaden the canon. Science fiction has an extraordinary tradition of political and social imagination that goes back to Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, and Jack London. It includes women and writers of color whose work explores systemic injustice, not just personal heroics. Some of the most relevant works include:

• Ursula K. Le Guin – The Dispossessed: Anarchist societies vs statist capitalism, and the need for balance.
• Octavia Butler – Parable of the Sower: Climate disaster, inequality, and the importance of community — a blueprint for our current century.
• George Orwell – 1984: Not just surveillance, but the manipulation of reality and the destruction of language.
• Aldous Huxley – Brave New World: A society of engineered contentment where people no longer want freedom.
• Philip K. Dick – The Man in the High Castle: Alternate history and the contingency of power.
• Kurt Vonnegut – Player Piano: Automation and the dehumanization of work.
• China Miéville – The City & the City: Multiple legal realities in the same physical space — a perfect metaphor for platform jurisdiction.

These books share a common thread: they treat technology as embedded in social systems. They ask questions like: Who owns the algorithm? Who has the right to deploy it? How do we maintain human dignity when machines can make decisions? They don’t reject technology; they reject the idea that technology exists outside of politics. That is precisely the insight that Silicon Valley leaders lack.

Case Study: From Cyberpunk to Civic Tech

Imagine two founders. Both have read Blade Runner. The first uses it to design a faster image recognition system for security cameras. The second reads it as a warning about corporate control of life and then builds an open-source facial recognition audits tool.

The first founder is a typical product of the tech culture Lepore describes: they see the dystopia as the inevitable future and simply try to get rich inside it. The second founder, having read political sci-fi, sees the same story but understands that the real value is in building alternatives. This second kind of builder is rare, but there are examples:

• Community-led data co-ops: Projects like People’s Health Trust or driver-owned ride-hailing services take power away from platforms and give it to users.
• Algorithmic impact assessment tools: AI Now Institute and local governments have developed methods to evaluate the societal impact of algorithmic systems before deployment.
• Open models and decentralized identity: Initiatives like Data Transfer Project and Solid (led by Tim Berners-Lee) aim to give individuals more control over their data — a direct response to the concentration of power in “Big Tech.”

These projects are not just technical; they are political. They embody a set of principles about consent, accountability, and distribution of power. They are what happens when people take the literary imagination of Le Guin and Butler and translate it into technical architecture.

What This Means for AI Governance

The debate over artificial intelligence has reached a stalemate. On one side, existential-risk researchers paint a picture of superintelligent machines destroying humanity. On the other side, market optimists insist that AI will cure cancer and solve climate change. Both camps speak in the language of science fiction — one from Terminator, the other from Star Trek — but neither addresses the more pressing, near-term governance crisis: what do we do when AI systems already control access to credit, housing, jobs, and news?

Lepore’s “Artificial State” is not a future problem. It is a present condition. In 2026, there is no country on Earth that has a comprehensive legal framework for AI’s societal effects. Instead, we have a patchwork of voluntary commitments, industry best practices, and occasional fines. That’s not governance; that’s an honor system. And as The New York Times reported on algorithmic bias in housing, the consequences are borne by the most vulnerable.

The key takeaway from Lepore’s episode is that we must stop treating AI as a neutral tool. AI is a political actor. It redistributes power, shapes speech, and decides who gets access to resources. The question is not “Can we make it safer?” but “Who gets to decide how it works?” That is a political question, and it requires a political imagination.

Practical Takeaways for Founders and Policymakers

For founders, the advice is simple: read more broadly. Do not just read technology blogs and cyberpunk. Read history, political theory, and science fiction that treats power seriously. Ask yourself: if my platform becomes essential infrastructure, what responsibilities do I have? What does a constitutional design process look like for an online community? Who is my “loyal opposition”?

For policymakers, the advice is equally clear: understand the technology but do not be seduced by the tech industry’s storytelling. Recall that the internet was supposed to make us freer; it also made us more surveilled. Regulate the behavior, not the tool. Focus on process, transparency, and accountability — not just on “innovation.”

For citizens and users, the message is to treat technology with the same skepticism you would apply to any powerful institution. Read your terms of service. Ask your city council about the algorithms used by the police. Join a digital rights organization. The “Artificial State” is not just a concept; it is your reality, and you can either help build its rules or be swept up by its rulemakers.

Conclusion

The TechCrunch episode featuring Jill Lepore is a reminder that the most important person in any technology ecosystem may be a historian, not a developer. Lepore’s critique of Silicon Valley’s poor sci-fi reading habits may sound academic, but it has urgent practical consequences: the inability to imagine political alternatives leads to a world where the only vision of the future is a corporate one. The way out is to read — and write — better stories.

The “Artificial State” is not inevitable. States are built by human beings, and human beings can change them. The first step is to stop seeing the world through the narrow lens of technological inevitability. Read The Dispossessed. Read Parable of the Sower. Read anything that asks, Who decides? Then go build tools that make it easier for everyone to answer that question democratically.

In the end, Lepore’s point is not that sci-fi will save us. It is that imagination is a prerequisite for freedom. And right now, the imagination of Silicon Valley is dangerously limited. The good news is that literature is plentiful, and it is never too late to become a better reader.

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