What happens at that moment is the following: The remote operator in the data center doesn't take over the steering wheel, as passengers sometimes assume, but rather plots a new course for the car on the city map. I don't know why the company opted for this form of human intervention. The important thing is that it opted. Behind the AI of a self-driving car, therefore, lies not only human intercession but something far more significant: a fundamental framing decision about when and how humans intervene in the system. The passenger is completely unaware of this. They drift along, whether they like it or not, in their black box.

The point, therefore, is not whether Al will eventually become more sophisticated or not. Whether Al will be able to do what its creators promise or threaten. The point is that talk of maturity deprives the public of a whole range of decisions and choices, by pretending instead that there are no decisions and choices to be made. When in fact, the maturing technology will involve more and more of these decision points. When the Irish capital, Dublin, decided to build a new subway, Dermot Desmond, the ninth richest person in Ireland, proclaimed that the government should cancel the project. After all, "Al" would make the project "obsolete" anyway. He was referring to cars from manufacturers like Waymo.

In such a statement, "AI" is used as though it were a familiar and agreed-upon concept that—once it's fully developed—will have a clear and unambiguous effect, as it happens precisely the effect the speaker's argument requires. It will negate or render obsolete whatever decisions he dislikes. It will make inevitable the outcome he desires. Dermot Desmond doesn't address how this is supposed to happen, how exactly "Al" is supposed to implement autonomous driving and make public transport obsolete. More importantly, the Irish billionaire didn't seem to grasp what's obvious to anyone whose Waymo car has to be controlled by a data center: that even when the technology is far more advanced than it is now, its deployment isn't a given, but will depend on political, legal, and business decisions - decisions made by programmers and product designers, CEOs, regulators, and politicians. Or perhaps Dermot Desmond does know this; perhaps he's hoping that Irish newspaper readers will forget the fact as quickly as possible.