The Digital Leviathan
Summary
The article reviews Jacob Siegel’s The Information State, portraying the 'information state' as a digital Leviathan that governs via opaque algorithms and population-level surveillance rather than traditional institutions. It traces historical roots from Bacon and Versailles to the present, arguing that technocratic management of information has supplanted liberal democracy and that the disinformation crisis is both a symptom and a tool of this system. The piece culminates in a warning about a coming AI-driven information state and urges readers to understand these forces to preserve meaningful popular sovereignty.