The Future Should Expand Human Agency

We are living through a period when technology can do things that once required years of training, specialized knowledge, or substantial resources.

Artificial intelligence can write, analyze, summarize, generate images, build software, organize information, and help people perform tasks they may never have imagined doing independently.

That creates extraordinary possibilities.

It also raises a question I believe deserves more attention:

As our technology becomes more capable, are we becoming more capable too?

I do not think the answer is automatic.

And I believe the distinction matters.

Capability and convenience are not the same thing

There is enormous value in making difficult tasks easier.

I am not interested in making people struggle unnecessarily to prove that they have learned something.

If technology can reduce repetitive work, increase accessibility, support learning, or help someone accomplish something they could not previously do, that is meaningful progress.

But making a task easier is not always the same as strengthening the person performing it.

A tool can produce an answer without helping someone understand the question.

It can generate a plan without helping the person evaluate whether the plan makes sense.

It can make a decision appear simpler while concealing the assumptions on which that decision depends.

And it can create the appearance of productivity without necessarily bringing someone closer to what matters to them.

That is where I believe we need to become more intentional.

The goal should not simply be to accomplish more tasks.

It should be to help people develop greater clarity, judgment, independence, and capacity to act.

What education taught me

Before artificial intelligence became part of my work, I taught in the classroom.

That experience continues to shape how I think about technology.

In the classroom, I learned that giving someone information and helping them understand information are two different things.

You can provide an explanation.

You can demonstrate a process.

You can show someone how to reach an answer.

But learning becomes meaningful when the person begins making connections independently.

When they can recognize a problem.

Ask a better question.

Evaluate information.

Apply something they have learned to a new situation.

And eventually move forward without needing someone else to direct every step.

That is one of the central purposes of education.

It is also what concerns me when technology begins doing more of our thinking for us.

I do not believe we should reject technological assistance.

I believe we should be thoughtful about what we are asking it to replace.

If a student uses AI to understand a difficult concept, that can support learning.

If a student uses AI to produce an assignment without understanding the material, the task may be completed while the educational purpose is lost.

The distinction is not whether technology was used.

The distinction is what happened to the learner's capability.

Agency begins with the ability to choose

When I use the word agency, I am talking about people's ability to understand their circumstances, make informed decisions, and act in ways that reflect their own goals and values.

Agency requires more than access to information.

It requires understanding.

It requires some degree of confidence.

It requires the ability to evaluate choices.

And it requires enough practical capacity to act on a decision.

Technology can support those things.

But it can also weaken them if people become so dependent on automated recommendations that they stop questioning the reasoning behind them.

Consider someone who wants to start a business.

AI can generate a business plan, suggest a name, produce marketing content, and organize a schedule in minutes.

That is impressive.

But does the person understand the problem the business is supposed to solve?

Have they considered who their customers are?

Do they know what resources they will need?

Can they distinguish an attractive recommendation from a realistic one?

Are they making decisions—or simply approving decisions that a system has made for them?

Those questions do not become less important because technology can produce polished answers.

They become more important.

Why I begin with clarity

This is one of the reasons I built iPurpose around a particular sequence:

Soul → Systems → AI.

Soul is about inner alignment: understanding what matters to you, what you are trying to accomplish, and why.

Systems are about the structure required to move forward: priorities, processes, decisions, and practical action.

AI comes afterward as a tool that can support the work.

That sequence is intentional.

I do not want technology determining someone's direction simply because it can generate one quickly.

I want the person to have enough clarity to recognize what is useful, what is not, and what should remain their own decision.

The most sophisticated technology in the world cannot determine what a meaningful life should look like for another human being.

It can help explore possibilities.

It can provide information.

It can support planning.

But people should remain involved in deciding what those possibilities mean for their own lives.

Access matters, but so does understanding

I am also interested in what artificial intelligence could make possible for people who have historically lacked access to certain resources.

A small business owner may not have the budget to hire specialists for every function.

A learner may need an explanation presented in a different way.

A community organization may lack the staff capacity to organize information or create materials quickly.

An individual with an idea may not know how to begin turning it into something practical.

AI can potentially reduce some of those barriers.

That possibility matters to me.

But access to technology does not automatically create equitable opportunity.

People also need the knowledge to use the technology effectively.

They need to understand its limitations.

They need the ability to question its outputs.

They need appropriate safeguards for their information.

And they need meaningful choices about how the technology is used.

A person who can access AI but cannot recognize when its answer is misleading may be exposed to a different set of disadvantages.

So our responsibility cannot end with making the tools available.

We also need to help people develop the judgment to use them well.

The responsibility of those building technology

I believe developers, educators, entrepreneurs, and institutions have an obligation to think beyond whether a technology works.

We should also ask what kinds of relationships it creates between people and systems.

Does it increase understanding or obscure how decisions are made?

Does it protect people's information?

Can users question, correct, or reject its recommendations?

Does it make people more independent or create unnecessary dependence?

Does it serve a real need, or does it introduce another layer of complexity into people's lives?

And who is accountable when something goes wrong?

These questions matter because technology is never experienced in isolation.

It enters schools.

Businesses.

Workplaces.

Homes.

Healthcare settings.

Community institutions.

And the everyday decisions people make about their lives.

The consequences of those decisions are not abstract.

They affect real people.

That is why I believe technological innovation should be accompanied by human responsibility.

We should not confuse speed with progress

One of the most attractive features of AI is speed.

Things that once took hours can sometimes be completed in minutes.

That can be valuable.

But speed can also create the temptation to move before we understand where we are going.

We can produce more content without having more to say.

Create more plans without becoming more committed to any of them.

Automate processes without asking whether those processes should exist in the first place.

And make decisions more quickly without necessarily making them more wisely.

I am interested in efficiency.

But I am more interested in effectiveness.

And beyond effectiveness, I am interested in meaning.

What are we trying to accomplish?

Why does it matter?

Who benefits?

And what becomes possible because we have done it?

I believe those questions should remain central, regardless of how powerful our tools become.

What I hope we build

I am optimistic about the possibilities artificial intelligence creates.

I am also convinced that optimism should be accompanied by discernment.

I want to see technology that helps people learn.

Technology that supports creativity rather than reducing everyone to the same set of generated ideas.

Technology that expands access to knowledge and opportunity.

Technology that helps small organizations and entrepreneurs build capacity.

Technology that gives people more meaningful control over their decisions, time, and resources.

And technology that respects the fact that human beings are more than the tasks they perform.

My interest in AI did not emerge separately from my experiences in education, leadership, philanthropy, and entrepreneurship.

It grew from the same questions I have been asking throughout my career.

How do people recognize their potential?

What helps them develop it?

What structures make opportunity accessible?

And how can the tools available to us help turn that potential into meaningful action?

Those questions have guided my work in different forms for decades.

They continue to guide what I am building now.

The future is a choice

I do not believe the future of artificial intelligence is simply something that will happen to us.

The technology will continue to evolve, but we still have choices about how we introduce it, teach it, govern it, and incorporate it into our lives.

We can design systems that make decisions increasingly opaque.

Or we can create tools that help people understand their choices more clearly.

We can prioritize automation without considering what people lose in the process.

Or we can use automation to create more room for human judgment, creativity, learning, and connection.

We can measure progress only by how much technology accomplishes.

Or we can also ask what people become more capable of accomplishing because of it.

That is the future I am interested in helping build.

AI should expand people's agency—not simply give them more things to do.

And if we are thoughtful about what we build, how we teach, and whom we include, the advancement of technology can become something more meaningful than a story about increasingly capable machines.

It can become a story about increasingly capable people.