(Roughly) Daily

… so we’d do well to stay focused on those in power– in government, to be sure; but increasingly also on the emerging oligarchs grabbing the reins.

Further, in a fashion, to yesterday’s post… there’s so much going on these days– threats to democracy and freedom and well-being coming from so many directions– that it’s all too easy to miss something important. Allison Stanger calls our attention to one such dynamic: just as, starting in the 17th century, the East India Company’s commercial success gradually justified new powers [see, e.g., here, here, and the almanac entry here), today’s AI firms seek to leverage technical prowess to assume public functions by default…

On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I signed a royal charter granting the East India Company exclusive rights to conduct trade in the Indian Ocean region. The document was precise in its limitations: The company could establish trading posts, negotiate with local rulers, and defend its commercial interests. Nothing more.

Seventy-seven years later, the same company had acquired the right to mint currency on behalf of the British crown. By 1765, it controlled the tax collection (ruthlessly enforced by its own private army) for the Indian provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa—territories containing roughly 20 million people. What began as commercial efficiency had become imperial governance. The transformation was so gradual that few contemporaries even noticed sovereignty shifting in the region from local rule to corporation.

A similar pattern can be seen today with national governments and Big Tech—only this time, centuries of drift have been compressed into months. Where the East India Company deployed trading posts and private armies, today’s technology firms and specifically AI development companies use data pipelines, data centers, and algorithmic systems. The medium has changed; the mechanics of private power assuming public functions remain the same.

Consider the trajectory of Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). Established in February 2025 with the stated goal of eliminating bureaucratic waste but an unstated aspiration to vacuum up new data to improve Musk’s companies, DOGE began with access to federal payment systems—ostensibly to identify inefficiencies. Within weeks, reports emerged that DOGE personnel had gained the ability to alter government databases, including Social Security records and contractor payments. The justification remained consistent: To deliver efficiency, one must first seize control.

The parallel extends beyond metaphor. Just as the East India Company’s commercial success gradually justified new powers, today’s AI firms seek to leverage technical prowess to assume public functions by default, implicitly assuming that the reallocation of power will serve human flourishing. Each efficiency gain becomes justification for the next transfer of authority, yet the costs of that automation go uncalculated.

What once took generations now takes quarters; the key difference is the ease with which private digital systems can be aligned with the politics of friends and enemies. Communications systems, financial networks, and governance mechanisms are no longer reshaped through military conquest but by software updates. Increasingly, those same systems are being weaponized against the very allies who helped build them.

From content moderation to infrastructure control to monetary governance, AI companies are taking on public operations. As AI becomes a more prominent feature of everyday life, already existing problems in our public life will proliferate exponentially. The transformation before us is likely to proceed through three variants—algorithmic capture of information systems, weaponization of critical infrastructure, and cryptocurrency’s escape from public accountability. Absent immediate intervention, democratic societies risk permanent subordination to unelected digital sovereigns…

[Stanger unpacks the three variants, with examples from Meta, Starlink, and the Trump organization’s World Liberty Financial…]

… The choice is still ours, but the time to act is now. Democracies can reclaim control over critical infrastructure—or continue outsourcing it to corporate entities that increasingly resemble the East India Company: efficient, unaccountable, and sovereign in all but name.

As American allies have discovered, platform dependency is a trap that snaps shut when you least expect it. The question facing democratic societies is whether they will escape this trap while they still can, or whether they will remain subject to the whims of unelected digital sovereigns.

Everything scientists most value—objectivity, truth-seeking, skepticism and transparency—is at stake. These digital sovereigns are no longer merely connecting the world—they are remaking it. Whether this transformation serves public values or corporate profits will decide not only the future of technology—but the fate of self-governance.

“The right to search for truth, implies a duty,” warned Albert Einstein. “One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.” The true cost of “efficiency” may be democracy itself, which is currently at risk of becoming just another social atavism of the analog age…

“The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power,” from @allisonstanger.bsky.social in @thebulletin.org.

Oh, and how might all of this work out even if there are no reins?: “Longtime Investor Warns the AI Industry Is Set to Collapse for a Basic Financial Reason“: “Each big tech company needs a global monopoly in AI to sustain their success and market value. They are not all going to get one.”… meantime, the damage to society is done…

* James Madison

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As we take it back, we might recall that Battle of Gaugamela was fought on this date in 331 BCE. The forces of the Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Persian Army under King Darius III met for the second time. Alexander and the Macedonians were victorious. The battle is considered the final blow to the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire, resulting in its complete conquest by Alexander.