William Gibson Predicted Autonomous AI Agents Six Years Before They Arrived
Eunice is almost here (William Gibson, Agency)
In Gibson's 2020 novel Agency, a young woman tests an experimental AI assistant named Eunice, who quietly buys and sells on a global frequent-flyer market while holding a conversation. Published nearly three years before ChatGPT, the scene now looks prophetic: OpenAI's GPT-Live, Block's Dessa, and Meta's Muse are bringing full-duplex conversation and 24/7 background agents that pursue goals on their own. What sets Eunice apart isn't that she talks, but how much she does while talking.
What makes Eunice remarkable isn't just that she can talk, it's that she's doing so much else while talking.