We Shape Our AI, Thereafter It Shapes Us: How to Maintain Human Agency in Our Agentic Age
Keen On America
Agency as the Defining Political Question
Andrew and Keith debate agency's political valence and whether agency is now the central ideological axis.
“We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.” — Marshall McLuhan (attributed)
Who gets to tell the AI story? A movie, a media company or Marshall McLuhan?
1. The movie: the AI doc, How I Became an Apocaloptimist, which That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare dismissed because it failed to define AI.
2. A media company: OpenAI bought the streaming show TBPN for hundreds of millions of dollars in a move that is akin to Lenin starting Pravda.
3. Marshall McLuhan: Ezra Klein visited Silicon Valley and was reminded of McLuhan’s (supposed) remark that “first we shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.”
Klein argues that AI agents are empowering tools that give humans a massive boost in productivity. But the effect, he writes, is to constantly reinforce a certain version of ourselves. These agentic tools are undermining our agency, he fears. So AI ultimately gets to tell the AI story.
Agency is becoming simultaneously the political problem and the cure — the thing-in-itself. Writing in the New York Times, Sophie Haigney argues that all the worst people want to be high-agency. Out here, in Silicon Valley, we think that all the worst people want to be low-agency. Perhaps the only thing we all agree on is that nobody wants to be a bot. First we shape our AIs and thereafter they shape us.
Five Takeaways
• The AI Doc Is a Massive Failure: Well made, technically fine, but it never establishes what the problem with AI actually is or what kind of solution it offers. All three leaders — Altman, Amodei, Hassabis — come across as unconvinced there will be a good future. The only opinion you can leave with is a negative one.
• OpenAI Bought a Media Company: TBPN acquired for what may be hundreds of millions. Om Malik compares it to Lenin starting Pravda. You don’t buy a media outlet unless you want to influence the message. Keith thinks it’s about winning the messaging war against Anthropic. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s COO shifts to special projects and Fidji Simo takes medical leave.
• Ezra Klein Saw Something New in San Francisco: He noticed people using AI agents as personal assistants — empowering tools that give humans a massive boost in productivity. His observation: the effect is to constantly reinforce a certain version of yourself. We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.
• Agency Is the Defining Political Conversation: The New York Times argues all the worst people want to be high-agency. Keith argues the opposite: agency is the precondition for making history. The Meta verdict treated a depressed girl as a passive victim of media with no decision-making role. That depicts humans as infants. It isn’t true.
• AI Is a Calculating Machine. You Have to Ask It Something: Agency hasn’t been given up. The human shapes the AI completely. Each session starts from scratch. The fear is that the next generation won’t be as clever as AI. But unless we have a strong sense of the self, we will be lost. If we do, we can shape these tools as we want.
About the Guest
Keith Teare is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and publisher of That Was The Week, a weekly newsletter on the tech economy. He is co-founder of SignalRank and a regular Saturday guest on Keen On America.
References:
• That Was The Week — Keith’s editorial: “Who Gets to Tell the AI Story?”
• Episode 2852: Don’t Fight the Last War — last TWTW on the social media trial and the Anthropic trap.
• Episode 2850: Bring the Friction Back — Balkam on social media addiction. The agency debate continues.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.
Chapters:
- (00:31) - Introduction: the AI doc, How I Became an Apocaloptimist
- (01:28) - Keith’s verdict: a massive failure of a movie
- (03:20) - Daniel Roher’s narrative: should I have a kid in an AI world?
- (05:30) - Who gets to tell the AI story?
- (07:55) - Brain surgeons vs. social policy: the trust problem
- (09:37) - OpenAI buys TBPN: Lenin, Pravda, and the propaganda play
- (11:57) - Executive churn at OpenAI: Lightcap, Simo, and the COO shuffle
- (15:22) - Stability is the enemy: the biggest startup the world has ever seen
- (17:28) - The markets: rear-view mirror meets speculation
- (19:48) - SpaceX with xAI: rumoured at $2 trillion
- (22:32) - Ezra Klein in San Francisco: I saw something new
- (24:19) - McLuhan: we shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us
- (26:42) - Why didn’t the AI doc actually use AI?
- (31:19) - The agency debate: all the worst people want to be high-agency
- (38:09) - AI is a calculating machine. You have to ask it something.
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