tl;dr: Historian Jill Lepore, in her upcoming book "The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State," argues that private tech companies—led by figures like Musk and Altman—are quietly usurping the functions of democratic governments, pushing a "rule by algorithms" that no one voted for. She contends Silicon Valley leaders misread sci-fi warnings (from E.M. Forster to Asimov) as blueprints rather than cautionary tales, and that the artificial state is ultimately doomed because it destroys the natural resources it depends on. Local backlash against data centers, she suggests, is an early sign of democratic pushback.