Agency as Design

Design AI so human agency is upstream, not retrofitted.

Agency does not survive being added later. By the time a system reaches production, the choices that shape what users can and cannot do have already been made — by interface, by default, by the small frictions and smoothings that route attention.

Agency as Design names the discipline of treating agency as a design constraint upstream, not an ethics review downstream. It asks: where in the system does the human have the capacity to refuse, to redirect, to slow down? What defaults have we set that pre-empt those moments?

This is not a complaint. It’s a brief. Build for the human who is reading carefully, doubting, holding multiple positions at once. The system that supports that human supports everyone who uses it.

Used in: Rooted podcast conversation with Analisa Winther (2026); subsequent essays. Pairs with: Human Before The Loop, Oscillation.