We now live in the Algorithmic Society, where public and private decision making increasingly depend on algorithms, artificial intelligence, platforms, large-scale data collection and digital surveillance. The Algorithmic Society produces an Algorithmic State, including a National Surveillance State organized around prediction and prevention. These changes disproportionately strengthen the executive branch, weaken Congress, limit practical judicial oversight, and increase government’s dependence on powerful private firms and privately-owned technological infrastructure.

Large global technology companies increasingly exercise governing power over communications, commerce, national security, access to information, and public debate. As a result, government and technology firms engage in repeated attempts at mutual co-optation, blurring traditional distinctions between public and private power. Digital platforms reshape the public sphere through an attention economy that weakens knowledge, intensifies political polarization, and erodes trust. These changes exacerbate four central features of constitutional rot: growing wealth inequality, political polarization, loss of trust, and policy disasters.

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