On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins speaks with Henry Farrell about AI, democracy, and political economy. Farrell argues that large language models are best understood not as emerging individual intelligences, but as “social technologies” that process and reorganize vast stores of human cultural information, much like markets, bureaucracies, and democracies process knowledge. The conversation explores deliberative democracy, civil society, Silicon Valley, AI regulation, and the risks of treating politics as an optimization problem. Farrell emphasizes the messiness of democratic life as essential to resisting authoritarianism and building a better future.

Henry Farrell is the SNF Agora Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author of various books, including Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Henry Holt and Co., 2023) and Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Fight over Freedom and Security (Princeton University Press, 2019), both coauthored with Abraham Newman, as well as The Political Economy of Trust: Institutions, Interests, and Inter-Firm Cooperation in Italy and Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

**This episode was recorded on January 7, 2026**

Show Notes:

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