Agentic AI is myth set in motion

Cosma Shalizi and the author argue in a new Economist piece that modern AI is best understood not as an emerging individual intelligence nor as mere parroting, but as a condensate of human culture—a self-mobilizing myth—since LLMs compress written knowledge (Barzun's "House of Intellect") into statistical summaries akin to the conventions learned by oral poets. Agentic AI combines these models with "harnesses" that let them issue instructions to ordinary programs and incorporate feedback, enabling feats like Lean-checked proofs or hacking attacks. Drawing on Shanahan et al.'s view of LLMs as non-deterministic simulators maintaining a superposition of simulacra, they describe agents as "many-pathed" like Odysseus—capable of extraordinary feats but without consistent goals.