This episode will cover:

• What is agency, historic context

• Agency in social justice and feminist movements

• Is prompting agency?

• Why agency feels so central in the age of AI

• How do we have it
  
  

Agency is a word we have borrowed from history, but we still struggle to define it in our own lives. At its simplest, it is the ability to act with intention, to shape rather than just react. Over time the meaning stretched through philosophy, civil rights, and feminist thought, where agency became voice, resistance, and the courage to author our own stories.

Now AI forces us to revisit the word again. Machines can execute faster than we can imagine. We can almost choose any project we want to work on, and build with far less friction. In a sense, we are out of excuses to not act. So what makes the difference? Direction.

Does giving a prompt count as having direction, as acting with agency? Or does agency require something deeper: clarity, values, perspective? In the end, what matters is not just that we can create, but whether we know why we are creating and where we want it to take us.