Op-Ed: There's a Downside to 'High Agency' Living

The buzzy label you're supposed to aspire to right now isn't "driven" or "ambitious"—it's "high agency." In an op-ed for the New York Times, Sophie Haigney traces how a once-obscure philosophical term about the human capacity for action has become a tech-world badge of honor, and now a broader personality ideal: the person who just decides to do things, from ditching college to launching a company with bad credit and no experience. "It implies decisiveness, self-assurance, and a willingness to take risks, a predilection for thinking 'outside the box' and questioning systems," Haigney writes. Sam Altman touts it as the top skill to have in the age of AI; startup culture casts "low-agency" folks as office drones or "NPCs."

Haigney isn't fully buying the hype. She notes that risk doesn't land the same for everyone, and this celebration of bold moves fits "a gambler's time" where steady, incremental paths feel pointless for many. "The future feels volatile and the rewards of labor are unequal, even absurd," she writes. So "why not have a little agency and bet it all on red?" More troubling, Haigney argues, is that "agency" has replaced older words like "courage" that implied a moral direction. Action is praised regardless of its purpose—whether it's a kid-entrepreneur launching a YouTube channel or President Trump bombing Iran. In a world where even AI "agents" endlessly do things, Haigney asks: action toward what, and for whom? For the full argument, read her Times column.