AI and American Democracy

The Center for the American Experience invites you to join Jill Lepore, award-winning American historian, New Yorker staff writer, and professor of law and American history at Harvard University, for a conversation with CAE faculty co-director Natalia Mehlman Petrzela on the American experience and her new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State. Lepore’s work has long explored how Americans understand democracy, constitutionalism, technology, and the institutions that shape public life, and this event will situate her latest book within that broader intellectual project. The discussion will range across the themes that define her scholarship and public writing, from the promises and dangers of technological governance to the evolving meanings of liberty, equality, and civic responsibility in the United States.

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State examines how modern states have increasingly relied on bureaucratic systems, algorithms, and engineered institutions to manage society, raising urgent questions about who controls these artificial structures and what they mean for democratic accountability. Drawing on her signature blend of historical depth and clear, accessible argument, Lepore traces the rise of these engineered systems and warns of their fragility when they outpace the human capacities they are meant to serve.

The evening will open with brief introductory remarks by Zed Adams, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Vice President of Technology, and Julia Sonnevend, Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications and co-director of the CAE.