New Delhi, Oct. 19 -- The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State. By Jill Lepore. Liveright; 336 pages; $29.99. Allen Lane; £25

What Happened to Liberal Democracy? By Daron Acemoglu. Dutton; 416 pages; $32. Profile Books; £25

When mulling how AI will transform society, consider an earlier technology that gave humans a helpful companion with superior capabilities: the dog. By domesticating wolves, humans were able, indirectly, to smell game far away and hear enemies approaching at night. They became better hunters than Neanderthals and better warriors: hard to ambush, hard to elude. Dogs are one reason why Homo sapiens outcompeted their prehistoric cousins and conquered the world, some anthropologists believe.

Back when dog tec...