Brynjolfsson, Erik, Alex Pentland, Nathan Persily, Condoleeza Rice, and Angela Aristidou. “Introduction: Artificial Intelligence and Democracy in America.” In The Digitalist Papers. Stanford, California: Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 2024. https://www.digitalistpapers.com/.

Abstract

I. What would the Federalist Papers say if they were written in the 21st Century?

In the late 18th century, the convergence of transformative innovations—technological and economic—with political revolutions in the United States and Europe reshaped the way people lived, worked, and governed themselves. In the United States, the ineffectiveness of national government under the Articles of Confederation led to a Constitutional Convention to re-envision the promise of the American Revolution through new institutions tailor-made for the American context. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote 85 essays under the pseudonym “Publius” to promote the ratification of the Constitution agreed to at the convention. The publication of these Federalist Papers represented a unique moment in political history, both in the United States and for other aspiring democracies, when political leaders analyzed the great challenges of the day and provided a roadmap of institutional innovation for the young nation.