The Phantom AI Race A metaphor that runs without competition

Read the full essay:
futureslens.johanneskleske.com/p/the-phant...

What if there was never going to be an AGI? What if the finish line doesn't exist, and the sprint was always going to run forever?

How would we approach AI then?

China is the strange model here. It looked at the American race, declined to call it that, and wrote its own playbook.

Europe hasn't done that yet. We're still caught in the American story, measuring our progress against their benchmarks.

Who needs this phantom?

Tech companies (regulation becomes a “handicap”). Deregulation advocates (China as a bogeyman). Hardliners (it militarizes a civilian tech).

In February 2026, even Anthropic dropped its safety pause by reference to the race.

So the US is running in a race without a finish line, without an ending, without a clear winner, and without an opponent who believes they're running.

The race rhetoric produces its own competitor. Without one, the metaphor loses its function.

The strangest part: the second runner isn't running.

Read Chinese AI sources directly. Xi Jinping speaks of “self-reliance,” “orderly development," and “AI+X integration.”

These are not the verbs of a sprint.

Under one belief, the race actually fits: the Intelligence Explosion. Whoever builds AGI first triggers runaway self-improvement and locks in permanent advantage.

That's the hidden bet inside every casual use of “AI race.”

Its function from day one was not description but mobilization.

“We want eight and we won't wait” was the boulevard slogan that forced the Asquith government to accelerate dreadnought construction.

The metaphor still does today exactly what it did in 1908.

The metaphor is older than the Cold War. It first appeared in 1906-1910, in the British press, describing the Anglo-German dreadnought rivalry.

The admirals didn't use it. Tirpitz spoke of “risk theory.” It was the newspapers that needed a “race.”

A race needs three things: a clear goal, a moment when it's over, and a winner.

AGI has no consensus definition. There's no after. AI capabilities are distributed across labs and countries.

The race metaphor fits none of the three.

A lone runner on a track, surrounded by empty stands, symbolizes a metaphorical race devoid of competition in AI development.

We talk about “the AI race” as if it were a description of the world. It isn't. It's a 100-year-old metaphor with a hidden bet, and the runner in the next lane was never actually running.

“Many critical insights about a prototype system will only emerge in the context of a serious creative problem that’s not about the system itself.” – Andy Matuschak

Don’t tell the Claude-Code-Influencers …

A book cover features green fields and blue sky, with text from Ursula K. Le Guin’s "The Dispossessed" emphasizing connection in thought.

"To him a thinking man’s job was not to deny one reality at the expense of the other, but to include and to connect. It was not an easy job."
– Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

A blurred background with white text quoting Johannes Kleske on anti-dystopian action, emphasizing humanity and meaning.

I guess you can call it my Easter sermon: futureslens.substack.com/p/anti-dyst...

A vibrant green background features abstract text, highlighting themes of fleeting youth cultures and trends, reflecting William Gibson's "Neuromancer."

“Fads swept the youth of the Sprawl at the speed of light; entire subcultures could rise overnight, thrive for a dozen weeks, and then vanish utterly.”
– William Gibson, Neuromancer

With all the hand-wringing about cognitive surrender and brain fry caused by our new tools, I'm sure McLuhan would be having a field day right now.

Thank you, sir!

The darkest futures are not the ones where things fall apart. They are the ones where everyone decided in advance that falling apart was inevitable
and acted accordingly. futureslens.substack.com/p/doomscrol...

I can‘t spend all morning figuring out what I can do now. It‘s exhausting.

So, please, for the love of God, take a month off and let us users catch up. Thank you!

This is not a suggestion. It's a plea! WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE TAKE A MONTH OFF? SERIOUSLY! Every day I open Claude, and there's a new feature that might change how I work. I have to constantly learn and adapt. You know I have to do actual work, right?

I think you all really deserve a vacation. Seriously, you‘ve been working so hard, and it's time to take a break. Chill on a beach somewhere, take a breather, and recharge. You've earned it!

Dear people at Anthropic,
That was one hell of a first quarter of 2026. You've all been cooking and taking this AI thing to the next level. I've been consistently impressed and excited by the progress you've made. You should be proud of yourselves!

I wrote about this in more detail in my latest newsletter:
futureslens.substack.com/p/the-futur...

Sohail Inayatullah describes the core task of critical futures work as “loosening the future.” Making rigid narratives flexible again. Opening space for alternatives. Reminding us that no single trajectory is inevitable.

The problem: most futurists don't treat this as one narrative among many. Instead of making the dominant story visible and opening the conversation to alternatives, they reinforce it. Every keynote, every trend report becomes a feedback loop that tightens the narrative further.

These tropes work because they match the anxiety already in the room. Decision-makers cheer loudest when someone channels their frustration at a system they feel powerless to change.

Four tropes I keep finding in futures presentations:

Determinism: “This is what's coming.”
Obsolescence: “Everything you know will be obsolete.”
The savior tool: “This framework will protect you.”
The laggard warning: “Nobody's coming to save you.”

I ran a linguistic analysis of a major futures keynote recently. Language of certainty (“will,” “inevitable,” “always”) outnumbered language of possibility (“could,” “might,” “what if”) at a ratio of 11:1.

The word “alternative” never appeared. Not once.

If the future is a storm, nobody caused it and nobody controls it. You can prepare for it. You can survive it. You do not shape it.

Agency shrinks to a single question: Are you ready?

A dominant metaphor for the future right now is the storm. Disruption as weather. Technology as a force of nature. The only reasonable response: readiness.

Sounds intuitive. But the metaphor is doing real work.