Institutional vs Personal AI

The author contrasts two AI models from William Gibson's Jackpot novels: the "aunties," invisible systems embedded in concentrated institutional power that amplify existing agency, and Eunice, a personal agent that generates new agency for an ordinary individual. The real distinction is not intelligence or autonomy but how power is distributed, raising questions of ownership, authority, and dependence. The author asks whether an agent that knows you intimately but is owned and switchable by your employer is fundamentally the employee's Eunice or the company's auntie.