Spain's PM calls AI an agent, not a tool, and divides opinion

The Prime Minister, AI as an "agent" and an unread book

Some phrases are born old. "AI is an agent, not an instrument" is one of them. Spain's Prime Minister dropped it at a public event, and it was enough to reopen a debate that is far from trivial: if artificial intelligence stops being a tool and becomes a subject, the rules of productivity, employment and even legal liability all change. The problem is not the metaphor. It's the framework. Amid price fatigue and fiscal strain, the speech boiled down to a bestseller recommendation and a cocktail-party line.

The fashionable book and the classic nobody quotes

The argument goes that the book choice is more about showmanship than judgment: recommending what already sells guarantees applause and avoids friction. The recurring criticism is that a leader who prides himself on intellectual stature would not stoop to the bestseller list, but would instead cite Aristotle and his Politics, where the degeneration of democracy into demagogy, and from there into tyranny, was already described. Some see in the episode not a slip but a method: politics turned into spectacle, the ruler as showman.

Others take a more nuanced view and argue that the substance matters. Treating AI as an agent forces us to rethink who answers for its mistakes, and that is a legitimate economic debate, not a decoration. What is disputed is whether someone who does not master the subject should be the one to lead it.

---

The uncomfortable question remains. Does it really matter whether a prime minister understands AI, or is knowing how to sell the photo enough? The productivity figure takes no side. It just keeps falling.