It’s some months since I read Marietje Schaake’s The Tech Coup, as she delivered the ST Lee Poicy Lecture here in Cambridge last November 11th, right after the US presidential election. Just a short time later, her warning looks even more prescient than it did on the day, as the American tech executives bend the knee at the court of Mar A Lago.

Most of the book is a descriptive analysis of how the US tech companies have come to occupy such a central role in daily life and in the politics of the west, often under the cover of “innovation” and their role in delivering economic growth. The chapters pick up on specific concerns, such as facial recognition being used by police forces as well as authoritarian regimes, misinformation on social media, the cyber insecurity due to corporate practices, and the loss of sovereignty by states other then the US. The thread running through all these is the vanishing concern for the public interest in the development and deployment of digital technology. While the issues are sadly familiar, Schaake brings the unique perspective of someone who was an MEP with responsibilities for the digital sector and now a Stanford University academic, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

The conclusion is titled, “Stop the tech coup, save democracy.” she writes, “The tech coup shifting power from public and democratic institutions to companies must stop.” But continues, “Invisibly or indirectly, a whole host of technologies is privatizing responsibilities that used to be the monopoly of the state.” As I write this post, the headlines today feature Mr Musk getting an office in the White House later this month, the European Commission ‘pausing’ its anti-trust actions against the big US tech firms under the EU DMA to consider the political ramifications, and the UK government, on the advice of a tech investor, going gung-ho on getting AI used through the public sector asap. Interestingly, yesterday I took part in a webinar at ICRIER, the Delhi-based think tank, where there was much emphasis on the direct role of the state in running digital public infrastructure. Public options must surely be a part of, not stopping, but turning back, the coup – or if you prefer a less dramatic turn of phrase, putting public interest back at the centre of innovation in this amazing technology.