[[Nexus -- A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI]] The decentralized nature of democracies and their strong self-correcting mechanisms provide a shield against totalitarianism, but they also make it more difficult to ensure order. To function, a democracy needs to meet two conditions: it needs to enable a free public conversation on key issues, and it needs to maintain a minimum of social order and institutional trust. So, what happens to democratic debates when millions—and eventually billions—of highly intelligent bots are not only composing extremely compelling political manifestos and creating deepfake images and videos but also able to win our trust and friendship?