As reported by TechCrunch AI, Lepore's argument usefully reframes a familiar concern—corporate overreach—through a historical lens, but its utility may be limited. The 'artificial state' concept, while evocative, risks conflating disparate phenomena, from libertarian tech philosophy to the practical failings of public-sector digitization. In our view, the more immediate threat isn't a deliberate corporate coup, but the gradual, unexamined ceding of public trust and core infrastructure to platforms whose primary accountability is to shareholders. The path forward likely requires less hand-wringing over sci-fi tropes and more concrete policy work on antitrust, data sovereignty, and algorithmic transparency.