ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the long-term relationship between technology and democracy. While democracy has persisted over the past two-and-a-half millennia, it is not clear how contingent that history has been. As a result, what democracy will look like hundreds or thousands of years from now, and even whether it will survive, is far from clear. What types of democracy will survive over the long term? Is liberal democracy – a form of democracy committed to individual rights, the rule of law, and limited government – likely to thrive? Or is liberal democracy destined for the dustbins of history, replaced by illiberal democracies that openly reject individual rights, flaunt the rule of law, and ignore limits to political power? Or will new forms of democracy emerge, both shaping and shaped by the technologies of the future? As human experience becomes more intertwined with the technologies we create, how might new technologies shape the democracies of the future? In particular, four areas of technological innovation are worth investigating: artificial intelligence, “big data,” robotics, and cyberwarfare. To what extent these technologies, and other yet-to-be-imagined innovations, shape future politics and democracy cannot be known. But beginning to imagine the long-term future of democracy requires some speculations about interplay between technology and democracy.
