In that sense, Musk's enthusiasm for Al-generated images of himself is another triumph of the imaginary over the grim reality, which is this: Elon Musk is not a warrior of some galactic empire, not a Roman centurion, not a rapper or an astronaut. He is a middle-aged man with all the problems that come with being a middle-aged man, minus the ones having to do with money. His children don't like him, his subordinates don't like him, his time is running out, and his body can perform the tasks it once accomplished with ease only with the help of drugs. AI promises someone like him more endless role-playing. And, in his understanding, Al also renders meaningless the years or even decades of accumulated expertise that generally lend our biographies their characteristic rigidity and inflexibility.

In fact, if we try to encapsulate what Al promises, we could just say: immaturity. That may not sound particularly tempting, but loitering in immaturity also means emulating those in power. Our historical moment is characterized by the power of immaturity. Or rather: Our time is characterized by immaturity as a technique of power. As soon as a person (assuming they have the right skin color and gender) is old enough that their transgressions are no longer excused as "youthful indiscretions," they already shift into the paradigm where they are simply "part of a different generation" and therefore cannot be held responsible for their words and deeds. The power of our day is always immature. And so are the technologies that wield it.

If this promise sounds a lot like a curse, it's probably because it essentially turns the main threat AI poses into a positive. Because if the trends of recent years continue, Al will primarily have the effect of keeping people in a state of untrained, undetermined adolescence for longer. In Silicon Valley, the jobs falling victim to Al are those entry-level coder jobs that previously represented the first rungs of the career ladder. Whether this is due to the true potential of the technology or instead due to the self-deception of the bosses, Al is destroying that phase of life in which one gains professional experience, contributes, and makes mistakes. In which, as Hegel would say, one "determines" oneself, opens some doors, and closes others.

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.