The Free Press | October 21, 2026 — Elliot Ackerman argues that the debate over artificial intelligence is about more than regulation versus free markets. At stake, he writes, is whether democratically accountable governments will retain authority over technologies capable of threatening society itself.
Drawing on the history of political sovereignty, Ackerman connects today's concentration of technological power with an older question: who has the legitimate authority to wield force, and to whom must that authority answer?
From Feudal Power to the Sovereign State
Ackerman traces a path from the private armies and competing authorities of medieval Europe through the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia. He turns to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan and Max Weber's account of legitimate force to explain the bargain through which people entrust power to the state in exchange for order and security.
The essay distinguishes Hobbes's unaccountable sovereign from the democratic state that later emerged. Ackerman argues that this history matters because powerful private technologies could weaken the public authority on which that bargain depends.
AI, Advanced Weapons, and Private Power
Comparing AI with nuclear weapons, Ackerman questions whether ordinary rules for private industry are sufficient for technologies with potentially catastrophic uses. He points to private influence over military communications, security contracting, and prisons as examples of an already blurred boundary between commercial power and state responsibility.
His concern is not simply that competing AI systems might become too powerful. It is that their conflicts, without an accountable coordinating authority, could reproduce the disorder associated with fragmented political power.
Democratic Control of the Most Powerful AI
Ackerman proposes treating the most powerful AI models more like advanced weapons, with the state retaining the final say over their deployment. He also calls for publicly funded AI research modeled on DARPA and international oversight drawing on the International Atomic Energy Agency.
For that authority to be legitimate, he argues, its terms must be established by Congress through bipartisan action, rather than dictated by a president or a technology executive. The essay ultimately asks whether elected representatives or unelected private actors will control the technologies that shape collective security.
Read the full essay at The Free Press
Illustration by The Free Press.