A Harvard professor says tech elites are pushing the world to "factory farming humans." Speaking on The New York Times' "Hard Fork" podcast, Lepore argues that this corporate takeover represents the "factory farming of humans" — a system designed to sort, segment, and isolate people, effectively stripping them of autonomy. She explains that tech elites are actively designing a future where societal decisions are dictated by machines owned by private entities rather than elected officials. In her book "The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State," Lepore stresses that humans are rapidly becoming to machines what animals became to humans during the rise of industrial agriculture. Rather than listening to the public’s true wishes—which often resist the invasive spread of AI and data centers—billionaire technocrats are pushing ahead to replace voter-driven legislatures with algorithmic governance. This shift poses a severe threat to human community and self-government, reducing public life to a series of corporate interactions where consent is completely bypassed. source: Lepore, J. (2026). The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State. Recorded Books.