I am not really sure who you are or why I ended up as a subscriber. I have found myself disagreeing with a lot of stuff you write (and agree with some, too) but this is excellent. Not something I have really considered, but I agree - with conditions. As someone with an engineering degree from Canada's McGill University (often called the Harvard of the North, Canadian Ivy League certainly) I live in the world of The Knowledge Age and have benefited from it. I am not as concerned/optimistic about the rise of AI, but I think your point is reasonable, it will certainly make raw ability in knowledge less important.
My main comment/observation is that while initiative is King (I think it always has been, mostly - even Bill Clinton made that case to Ohio workers losing manu jobs in the 1990s that the ONLY job security they really had was their ability to take initiative) there are swathes of society caught up in, and promoting, Victim Mindsets (DEI, identity politics, feminism, etc etc) that there are reams of young people today being actively robbed of the awareness that they EVEN have the ability to get themselves out of life's jams.
So while I heartily agree initiative matters more than anything, ESPECIALLY now, lots of people are getting the opposite message.
Write of Passage perhaps? You're right that victimology is particularly harmful as the importance of agency rises. Anyways, glad it resonated with you.
I am so not concerned with people not using their agency wisely. Right now, our concern has to be with getting people off the floor. I see so many people wanting to be victims now and somehow thinking this gives them power--rather, it is the forfeiting of agency. Of course, we made victimhood the coin of the realm and, well, what did we expect?
It's time to get people to forget how much of a victim they might be (nobody of importance really cares) and get all of us to use our agency and do something.
Then, and only then, should we concern ourselves about using agency wisely. Let's get people to develop their muscle memory first.
I am reminded of the quote "We are as gods so might as well get good at it" from Stewart Brand, the original agency promoter from 50 years ago. He didn't use that word but that was basically the idea of the Whole Earth Catalog – you (hippies) can just do stuff and here are the tools and guides to get started.
Punk rock had the opposite aesthetic but actually a pretty similar spirit of just do it.
I hope the upcoming young generations can invent some agentic subcultures for themselves!
I'm in violent agreement with you, Jeff, that "giving kids space to build, explore, and self-direct" is key to preparing them for a world that few of us could have imagined. Or even our world, which few of our parents or grandparents could have imagined.
One of the challenges is that while great schools, private and, when well-financed, public, have always sought to "[give] kids space to build, explore and self-direct," if we don't extend that mandate or expectation to all schools serving families at all income levels, we perpetuate inequalities within and across countries, that will exacerbate social and political tensions as inequality grows.
If we're smart, we'll reinvent public education within the next ten years. Some of the new personalized education apps I'm seeing (and using) will make this possible at scale, combined with adult instruction and guidance. May write up an essay on this at some point.
I am not sure our politics exactly line up, but that is a good thing, it helps to stimulate continued growth and thinking in writing and verbal conversation. I have been reading your public posts for a few months now and have begun to look forward to your articles. I have just recently started using Substack, but it has been hit and miss when I get on here to actually right something. Your article on Agency as the new superpower was excellent and drove home the point about one's actions, being able to think critically and take actions to get things done. I wanted to publicly thank you; it has led me to 'upping my game' in building my own Substack audience. I believe I have the intelligence and critical thinking skills, but have been falling short on Action.
Hey Ken, Thanks for the kind words. I'm not sure I even know what my politics are these days (lol half kidding). But seriously, best of luck taking action and upping your game. My two cents: Give yourself permission to suck for a while. Do the reps, regardless of outcome, and see what unfolds.
You are definitely on to something here. Of course, agency was always the most important thing, but I do think it's accurate to say that tools have developed so much that intelligence doesn't matter as much.
My parents owned a photography studio and made a decent living. Businesses were the gatekeepers for photographs because taking them, developing them, and printing them were time-consuming and expensive. Then came digital photography and it decimated the industry. Anyone could buy a camera, take dozens of pictures, pick the best one, and print it anywhere they want. The same thing is happening with AI and it's happening everywhere.
Want to write a children's book? Can't draw? Doesn't matter! You can use AI generated images and self-publish through Amazon at NO COST. I wrote about this phenomenon recently, my in-laws actually bought an AI-generated children's book from Amazon and I ended up reading it to my kids (to my utter horror).
I would say having high iq + high agency would the most valuable combination by far. You still have to know which questions to ask AI and know when it's telling you bs especially in coding, math and stats. AI will augment your skills and help refine your thinking but the ability to identify the right problems, critically examine the solutions and then act on it requires high iq and agency.
Very insightful. And the concept of agency does seem to be the differentiating characterestic in this age. On the Washington stage, it plays out in the case of high agency Trump utterly confounding his opponents.
In prior eras, the words to describe the same characteristic would have been initiative, courage, steadfastness, etc. Perhaps we should be reading about Sir Francis Drake or Lewis and Clark for a better sense of the character traits that will succeed in the future.
Thanks Drake. There’s definitely a political dimension that could be an essay unto itself. Btw I agree with you about capturing imagination with models of derring-do.
This is beautifully articulated and spot on. In terms of the gender concern, I think that valuing agency reinvigorates healthy masculine energy. Everyone needs healthy masculine energy to survive; women and men who struggle with healthy agency will be trapped in passive aggression and a sense of being victimized by the exigencies of life. And I think those with healthy feminine energy instinctively support the healthy masculinity of principled agency as a matter of course. Loyalty grows. In short, this is an optimistic and welcome analysis you have presented. Thank you!
I am thinking about the implications of this as a public school teacher. I teach history, and I am honest with my student that most of the content I teach is google-able. My goal is to make it interesting and relevant to them. And to teach skills like critical thinking and argumentative writing and using evidence with that content. Many students have been using AI the past couple of years for anything that requires reading and writing. I have been trying to find creative and interesting assignments that require a human brain and its abilities that are harder to replicate with AI. I don't want to spend all my time trying to CATCH my students but to help them see why the work is worth the effort.
I appreciated the comment someone had about all schools needing to be better about teaching these skills not just well funded ones. Schools need to challenge students and find ways to entice them beyond their tiktok videos. Parents need to help us in these areas, too.
Hi Janell - I admire how much you care about serving your students and your openness to new teaching methods as these technologies spread. I don't have easy answers, but lately I've been obsessed with Alpha Schools, which flips the traditional model on its head. You may find it interesting to check out. Check out the link below. Also: Go Pacers :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPKfsT9yLoY&ab_channel=FutureofEducation
The Alpha Schools do sound awesome! I think one of my biggest concerns about my students lately is that so many of them are task oriented instead of learning oriented. I think it would be great to latch onto that love of learning that younger students have and build from there. I am a big believer that students should have lots of opportunities to choose in their learning - with some adult guidance for sure.
That’s great you’re trying to get your kids learning by keeping them engaged and interested. For me, group and individual problem-solving projects were more engaging than just reading or watching media, and helped me understand and absorb the lessons better by requiring me to apply them in practice rather than just memorizing. The Alpha Schools cost about $40,000 per year tuition. That is not affordable for everyone. So if you, as a public school teacher, can incorporate that type of learning in public school, you will help develop a way of learning that can impact far more kids than the more expensive Alpha Schools.
I fully admit I was rather uncharacteristically dismissive when Jeff surfaced this initial idea a few days ago on Notes, offering a quick quip that this was also the age of gatekeepers. I would argue that that was certainly the case in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis and the Greater Obama Era (still a rather raw topic for me), but now we have this odd confluence of events where both AI and Trump 2.0 are rapidly taking off. For good or ill, many could certainly appreciate the argument that Trump has disrupted various structural barriers, and many gatekeepers of old are now (temporarily at least) a sidelined force.
AI also stands to help people disrupt not just intelligence, but proprietary knowledge. Jeff mentions law and coding, but another area this could apply to is medicine. I've found that internal medicine doctors as well as even general specialists just aren't that interested in multivariate analysis or thinking holistically three steps ahead. It's always point to point to point. They take their pre-established base of knowledge and then quickly apply it to their snapshot of you, with outliers and unique circumstances brushed past as an annoying complication unless it's a red flag for a potential malpractice lawsuit. AI can invert this process, with some models able to scrape entire cross-discipline databases and spit out results that someone reasonably intelligent from outside the field could understand. Imagine what it'll be like when people start coming in for their appointments with ChatGPT analyses of their labs, pharmaceutical side effects, and cross referenced disparate pre-existing conditions?
Makes be wonder just how useful AI already is for stocks for the main street investor...
I am not really sure who you are or why I ended up as a subscriber. I have found myself disagreeing with a lot of stuff you write (and agree with some, too) but this is excellent. Not something I have really considered, but I agree - with conditions. As someone with an engineering degree from Canada's McGill University (often called the Harvard of the North, Canadian Ivy League certainly) I live in the world of The Knowledge Age and have benefited from it. I am not as concerned/optimistic about the rise of AI, but I think your point is reasonable, it will certainly make raw ability in knowledge less important.
My main comment/observation is that while initiative is King (I think it always has been, mostly - even Bill Clinton made that case to Ohio workers losing manu jobs in the 1990s that the ONLY job security they really had was their ability to take initiative) there are swathes of society caught up in, and promoting, Victim Mindsets (DEI, identity politics, feminism, etc etc) that there are reams of young people today being actively robbed of the awareness that they EVEN have the ability to get themselves out of life's jams.
So while I heartily agree initiative matters more than anything, ESPECIALLY now, lots of people are getting the opposite message.
Write of Passage perhaps? You're right that victimology is particularly harmful as the importance of agency rises. Anyways, glad it resonated with you.
Wrote my piece before I read this, but absolutely yeah.
I am so not concerned with people not using their agency wisely. Right now, our concern has to be with getting people off the floor. I see so many people wanting to be victims now and somehow thinking this gives them power--rather, it is the forfeiting of agency. Of course, we made victimhood the coin of the realm and, well, what did we expect?
It's time to get people to forget how much of a victim they might be (nobody of importance really cares) and get all of us to use our agency and do something.
Then, and only then, should we concern ourselves about using agency wisely. Let's get people to develop their muscle memory first.
Yes. Excellent point.
Loved reading this. So well thought out, and damn timely for me. Thank you.
Thanks Matt. Glad it resonated.
I am reminded of the quote "We are as gods so might as well get good at it" from Stewart Brand, the original agency promoter from 50 years ago. He didn't use that word but that was basically the idea of the Whole Earth Catalog – you (hippies) can just do stuff and here are the tools and guides to get started.
Punk rock had the opposite aesthetic but actually a pretty similar spirit of just do it.
I hope the upcoming young generations can invent some agentic subcultures for themselves!
Same. I think they will.
I'm in violent agreement with you, Jeff, that "giving kids space to build, explore, and self-direct" is key to preparing them for a world that few of us could have imagined. Or even our world, which few of our parents or grandparents could have imagined.
One of the challenges is that while great schools, private and, when well-financed, public, have always sought to "[give] kids space to build, explore and self-direct," if we don't extend that mandate or expectation to all schools serving families at all income levels, we perpetuate inequalities within and across countries, that will exacerbate social and political tensions as inequality grows.
If we're smart, we'll reinvent public education within the next ten years. Some of the new personalized education apps I'm seeing (and using) will make this possible at scale, combined with adult instruction and guidance. May write up an essay on this at some point.
Please do! I’d love to know more about the apps and your thoughts on this.
Thanks. If there’s interest, I may write up my vision for public education as a layman parent at some point. :)
That image is truly awesome
Jeff,
I am not sure our politics exactly line up, but that is a good thing, it helps to stimulate continued growth and thinking in writing and verbal conversation. I have been reading your public posts for a few months now and have begun to look forward to your articles. I have just recently started using Substack, but it has been hit and miss when I get on here to actually right something. Your article on Agency as the new superpower was excellent and drove home the point about one's actions, being able to think critically and take actions to get things done. I wanted to publicly thank you; it has led me to 'upping my game' in building my own Substack audience. I believe I have the intelligence and critical thinking skills, but have been falling short on Action.
Hey Ken, Thanks for the kind words. I'm not sure I even know what my politics are these days (lol half kidding). But seriously, best of luck taking action and upping your game. My two cents: Give yourself permission to suck for a while. Do the reps, regardless of outcome, and see what unfolds.
Rule number one edit my work before posting - "actually right something" should read actually write something.
Thank you
You are definitely on to something here. Of course, agency was always the most important thing, but I do think it's accurate to say that tools have developed so much that intelligence doesn't matter as much.
My parents owned a photography studio and made a decent living. Businesses were the gatekeepers for photographs because taking them, developing them, and printing them were time-consuming and expensive. Then came digital photography and it decimated the industry. Anyone could buy a camera, take dozens of pictures, pick the best one, and print it anywhere they want. The same thing is happening with AI and it's happening everywhere.
Want to write a children's book? Can't draw? Doesn't matter! You can use AI generated images and self-publish through Amazon at NO COST. I wrote about this phenomenon recently, my in-laws actually bought an AI-generated children's book from Amazon and I ended up reading it to my kids (to my utter horror).
https://letsberealistic.substack.com/p/happy-the-lazy-ai-invades-bedtime
"Just do stuff" is a good rule of thumb especially when risk and uncertainty is higher than usual.
I think one additional point is surrounding yourself in a culture of 'trying things out' would help build the skill (like any skill)
For sure. Good point.
I would say having high iq + high agency would the most valuable combination by far. You still have to know which questions to ask AI and know when it's telling you bs especially in coding, math and stats. AI will augment your skills and help refine your thinking but the ability to identify the right problems, critically examine the solutions and then act on it requires high iq and agency.
Definitely
Very insightful. And the concept of agency does seem to be the differentiating characterestic in this age. On the Washington stage, it plays out in the case of high agency Trump utterly confounding his opponents.
In prior eras, the words to describe the same characteristic would have been initiative, courage, steadfastness, etc. Perhaps we should be reading about Sir Francis Drake or Lewis and Clark for a better sense of the character traits that will succeed in the future.
Thanks Drake. There’s definitely a political dimension that could be an essay unto itself. Btw I agree with you about capturing imagination with models of derring-do.
This is beautifully articulated and spot on. In terms of the gender concern, I think that valuing agency reinvigorates healthy masculine energy. Everyone needs healthy masculine energy to survive; women and men who struggle with healthy agency will be trapped in passive aggression and a sense of being victimized by the exigencies of life. And I think those with healthy feminine energy instinctively support the healthy masculinity of principled agency as a matter of course. Loyalty grows. In short, this is an optimistic and welcome analysis you have presented. Thank you!
Thanks so much Rebecca. Well said.
love this. love the visuals especially. Agency and adaptability. Choice is powerful. Thank you for this one!
Thank you
I am thinking about the implications of this as a public school teacher. I teach history, and I am honest with my student that most of the content I teach is google-able. My goal is to make it interesting and relevant to them. And to teach skills like critical thinking and argumentative writing and using evidence with that content. Many students have been using AI the past couple of years for anything that requires reading and writing. I have been trying to find creative and interesting assignments that require a human brain and its abilities that are harder to replicate with AI. I don't want to spend all my time trying to CATCH my students but to help them see why the work is worth the effort.
I appreciated the comment someone had about all schools needing to be better about teaching these skills not just well funded ones. Schools need to challenge students and find ways to entice them beyond their tiktok videos. Parents need to help us in these areas, too.
Thanks for always making me think.
Hi Janell - I admire how much you care about serving your students and your openness to new teaching methods as these technologies spread. I don't have easy answers, but lately I've been obsessed with Alpha Schools, which flips the traditional model on its head. You may find it interesting to check out. Check out the link below. Also: Go Pacers :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPKfsT9yLoY&ab_channel=FutureofEducation
The Alpha Schools do sound awesome! I think one of my biggest concerns about my students lately is that so many of them are task oriented instead of learning oriented. I think it would be great to latch onto that love of learning that younger students have and build from there. I am a big believer that students should have lots of opportunities to choose in their learning - with some adult guidance for sure.
Janell,
That’s great you’re trying to get your kids learning by keeping them engaged and interested. For me, group and individual problem-solving projects were more engaging than just reading or watching media, and helped me understand and absorb the lessons better by requiring me to apply them in practice rather than just memorizing. The Alpha Schools cost about $40,000 per year tuition. That is not affordable for everyone. So if you, as a public school teacher, can incorporate that type of learning in public school, you will help develop a way of learning that can impact far more kids than the more expensive Alpha Schools.
I fully admit I was rather uncharacteristically dismissive when Jeff surfaced this initial idea a few days ago on Notes, offering a quick quip that this was also the age of gatekeepers. I would argue that that was certainly the case in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis and the Greater Obama Era (still a rather raw topic for me), but now we have this odd confluence of events where both AI and Trump 2.0 are rapidly taking off. For good or ill, many could certainly appreciate the argument that Trump has disrupted various structural barriers, and many gatekeepers of old are now (temporarily at least) a sidelined force.
AI also stands to help people disrupt not just intelligence, but proprietary knowledge. Jeff mentions law and coding, but another area this could apply to is medicine. I've found that internal medicine doctors as well as even general specialists just aren't that interested in multivariate analysis or thinking holistically three steps ahead. It's always point to point to point. They take their pre-established base of knowledge and then quickly apply it to their snapshot of you, with outliers and unique circumstances brushed past as an annoying complication unless it's a red flag for a potential malpractice lawsuit. AI can invert this process, with some models able to scrape entire cross-discipline databases and spit out results that someone reasonably intelligent from outside the field could understand. Imagine what it'll be like when people start coming in for their appointments with ChatGPT analyses of their labs, pharmaceutical side effects, and cross referenced disparate pre-existing conditions?
Makes be wonder just how useful AI already is for stocks for the main street investor...
Good point re medicine