Advancements in large language models, including chatbots, have reignited debates about how policymakers should respond to the proliferation of digital technologies throughout our lives. Recent controversies range from the intimate, like lawsuits alleging wrongful deaths of users who died by suicide after confiding in sycophantic chatbots, to the systemic, such as impact of AI on economic precarity and unemployment. That the latter has dominated recent public debate is due not only to the highly speculative nature of the tech industry, both intellectually and financially, but also to the widespread assumption that today's illiberal threats to democracy stem from the economic consequences of past patterns of automation. Failures of technocratic governance, often justified to the public in terms of economic prosperity, have fueled populist backlash that undermines the institutions on which markets and democracy depend.

In her latest book, Jude Browne shows how the tendency to think about injustice as a matter of individual guilt hampers our capacity to address the challenges posed by our digital political economy. For example, large language models, social media platforms, predictive analytics programs, and other technologies rely on massive data collection, enabled by a data governance regime that tends to favor private companies over individual users, resul