Agency

For years, we feared automation would replace humans. But as AI reshapes the economy, it’s becoming clear that far from replacing human ingenuity, AI has amplified it. The critical dividing line in our economy is no longer simply education or specialization, but rather agency itself: the raw determination to make things happen without waiting for... See more

It has become hard to be intentional about the future — to imagine and shape the worlds we want to live in — because the modern state rarely assumes any role in doing that or in encouraging us to do it either.

In ordinary language, we frequently speak of machinery or ideas ‘doing’ things in our lives. But they do nothing. People – human persons – produce, operate and apply their creations. The problem with assigning agency, even informally, to the nonhuman is that this disguises the strength of human control, limited though it is in other respects. It... See more

Anxiety can also significantly impair agency - it’s much harder to act when you’re worried that everything is going to go terribly, horribly, wrong, if you do, so anxiety in a specific area will often reduce your agency in that area (e.g. anxiety about your technical skills will make you less willing to try things at work, social anxiety will make

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The mismatch between past and present doesn’t seem trivial to me — if the “you” of today can so blithely disregard the “you” of yesterday, then it follows that the “you” I’m talking to now might very well not be the one who shows up for our date tomorrow. There’s a kind of unpredictable change that seems to lie outside of the virtues of growth and... See more