How (And Why) AI is Eroding Democracy in the US

Yves here. Tom Valovic describes not only how AI is eagerly being deployed to expand the reach of the surveillance state, but also how its growing role in information abstraction and summarization is being used to determine what facts and theories are deemed to be valid.

By Tom Valovic, a writer, editor, futurist, and the author of Digital Mythologies (Rutgers University Press), a series of essays that explored emerging social and cultural issues raised by the advent of the Internet. He has served as a consultant to the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and was editor-in- chief of Telecommunications magazine for many years. Tom has written about the effects of technology on society for a variety of publications including Common Dreams, Counterpunch, The Technoskeptic, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Examiner, Columbia University’s Media Studies Journal, and others. He can be reached at [email protected]. Originally published at Common Dreams

In the first few weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump announced a massive AI infrastructure project dubbed Stargate. It was an unexpected and rather odd event for a new administration’s first major initiative. It now seems obvious that the project was a highly coordinated initiative between the federal government and the Big Tech power base that puppeteers many of its programs as the US glides into full technocrat mode.

Stargate is an ongoing $500 billion public-private partnership intended to fast-track AI. It includes tech behemoths such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle. In practical terms, that means only one thing: a massive push to deploy AI data centers in every US state as quickly as possible. In the public’s perception, Stargate has faded from memory and neither the public nor many media outlets make the connection with the data center controversy now gripping the nation and generating headlines practically every day.

Nominally, this initiative is part of the larger goal of establishing the US as the world leader in AI innovation, especially with respect to similar efforts in China. But, tellingly, after the announcement, OpenAI described Stargate as a project that “will not only support the reindustrialization of the US but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.” Here’s the translation of that language: military use and protection against cyber threats.

Astonishingly, in the press conference announcing it, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison blithely noted: “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”

Even more astonishing is the fact that such a blatant declaration of the intent to radically ratchet up mass surveillance didn’t get pounced on by reporters and editors in the corporate media. At an Oracle financial analyst meeting, Ellison opined that AI will be used to process vast amounts of camera footage including data from car dashboards, front-door security systems, and Flock cameras. In the meantime, many states are busy deploying the highly controversial Flock devices to feed the AI beast its insatiable appetite for data. The good news is that, according to both the American Civil Liberties Union and mainstream media, there has been strong citizen pushback against the Flock cameras, even if the general public is not aware of the full range of the Trump-Ellison vision of a dystopian digital panopticon.

States Are Cooperating with Trump’s Plan

It seems clear that the Stargate initiative is authoritarian in nature. This blanket imposition of a massive technocratic structure imposed by an unholy alliance between the federal government and Big Tech business—the public-private partnership concept on steroids—is at odds with our most fundamental democratic processes. And while the temptation exists to lay this on the doorstep of the Republican-controlled Congress, make no mistake—the change is deep and structural and includes the compliance of Democrats as well.

Let’s just look at one example. In the bluest of blue states, Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey has been working closely with an array of Big Tech companies that include AI giants such as Google and OpenAI. In February 2026, she announced partnerships with both companies. As described in a press release: “At Google’s office in Cambridge today, Governor Maura Healey announced a new statewide partnership with Grow with Google to offer all Massachusetts residents access to artificial intelligence…This initiative is designed to help provide every resident and small business with the AI and tech skills they need to succeed in today’s digital economy at no cost.” Around the same time, Healey also announced the launch of an initiative involving Open AI’s ChatGPT, making Massachusetts the first state to embrace AI usage for the entire executive branch of approximately 40,000 employees.

But to commit to AI is also to commit to the necessary infrastructure. AI data centers are springing up like dandelions in states all over the US. This is often happening without oversight because of undemocratic non-disclosure agreements that keep plans for building data centers out of the watchful eye of the cities and towns that will have to live with them as they suck up available public resources such as electricity and water while driving up costs for those essentials. This is happening in both red and blue states.

AI’s Subtle Nudge Towards an Authoritarian Mindset

Stargate and the data center debacle are just the more obvious aspect of the authoritarian threat. There’s another that’s perhaps more insidious. For years, an interesting phrase has been popping up in high-tech circles: “a single source of truth.” It’s an enticing idea of course as we all crave simplification in this increasingly complex world. But this conceptual framework lays the groundwork for a new and more subtle kind of authoritarian mindset. And the rapid advance of AI is increasingly pushing this fatuous notion into alarmingly broad adoption, even in academic and professional circles.

Widespread AI adoption is based on the conventional wisdom that it will greatly expand the human panorama of knowledge, scientific and otherwise. The reality may be very different. In fact, it’s possible that the precise opposite will be the result. How can this be? Let me explain. In its current trajectory, AI usage appears to hijack the vast landscape of facts, opinions, and ideas across the arc of human knowledge and the multidisciplinary spectrum. The existential danger is that we’re being ever so gradually led to believe that there’s a single “right” answer to every known question, issue, or conundrum in politics, science, religion, politics, philosophy, and many other areas of modern life.

While AI appears to be a conduit to vast sources of knowledge previously unavailable, one of its most concerning characteristics remains poorly understood. AI has been designed to act not just as a new conduit to the internet but also as a gatekeeper and arbiter of what’s true and not true. Just as concerning, it’s not enhancing the internet… rather it’s replacing it. This shift means that searching the web will increasingly be performed by AI agents rather than humans. At its annual I/O developer conference in May 2026, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed this as a major change in the company’s strategy. As noted by Sarah Perez in TechCrunch, “Links will become an afterthought with the coming changes to the Search results experience.” Goodbye search as we know it.

In behind-the-scenes Oz-like fashion, the raw power of this new form of information manipulation remains largely invisible yet all-pervasive and touches every aspect of our lives. It’s a nifty setup. Big Tech can sit back and claim lack of responsibility: We only developed it, and now it’s “doing its own thing.” In the meantime, they rack in billions and begin charging businesses and ordinary internet users more and more for AI capabilities that were initially offered as free services.

AI will increase our technological dependency by orders of magnitude, reducing our collective sense of human agency so badly needed now to counteract the effects of living in day-to-day polycrisis and political gridlock. Over time, this may translate into a kind of “learned helplessness” and a potent diminishment of grassroots political power. Society will become structured into rigid tiers depending on AI status. In the meantime, as poet and political commentator Katha Pollitt has pointed out, AI is also debasing “language, imagination, individuality, and art.”

Obviously, this is not a pretty picture but, in my opinion, there are real reasons for hope on the horizon. Increasingly, the technocratic takeover is being exposed for what it is: an anti-democratic power grab informed by a warped view of what constitutes quality of life (i.e. Silicon Valley transhumanism) and an acceleration of hyper capitalism that’s already wrought significant havoc on our planetary ecosystem.

The AI data center pushback is a wake-up call. Big Tech elitists have their hooks into everything—from what happens in the privacy of our homes to the rampant AI-driven militarism we see unfolding on the global stage. But the next six months and the midterm elections represent a critical window of opportunity to turn much of this around and “just say no” to the AI juggernaut. I believe there’s a very good chance that the nationwide pushback we’re now seeing about AI data centers and the rejection of the failed use of computers in education may be the beginning of a new wave of hope, renewal, and the restoration of democracy and common sense. Stay tuned.