There seems to be a disconnect here between the idea of agency you and these other articles are pursuing, and what your specific goals are. The definition of “agency” can mean a lot of different things to different people, but the version the LW community seems to coalesce around is something like “recognizing when irrational factors like social norms and emotional influences are stopping you from pursuing your goals as effectively as possible, and changing your behavior so that you are no longer restrained by those factors”. If that’s what you mean, the article you cited “Seven ways...” is probably as close as you’re going to get. There’s no magic bullet here. I would suggest doing post-mortem reviews on your day-to-day activities and trying to identify moments where in hindsight you let an irrational factor get in your way and you should have behaved more “agently”, and using those as teaching moments going forward.
Another type of “agency” that’s equally valid and fits the definition well, but doesn’t seem to be what you’re talking about, is agency in the sense of having the knowledge and skills to understand and interact with the systems around you in ways that most people don’t bother to do. Orienting Towards Wizard Power is an article that does a great job on this, and if you were just asking for more concrete suggestions to be more agenty in a vacuum I would suggest it, but it doesn’t seem very relevant to AI Safety which you seem to be focused on.
And that’s why I think this article is kind of a contradiction. You’re resting on the assumption that “everyone being more agenty” is what the AI Safety movement needs, and I don’t think that’s true. We already have established paths for people who are trying to devote themselves to the cause as effectively as possible. Either study AI and join the research effort, Earn to Give and devote yourself to making a bunch of money to donate to the cause, or focus on the social/political/marketing side and try to solve the hard problem of convincing the public that AI Safety is a pressing issue. Building more agency as an individual will help you somewhat in all of these pursuits, just like any others, but I don’t see why you have identified it as the main thing holding you and others back.
There seems to be a disconnect here between the idea of agency you and these other articles are pursuing, and what your specific goals are. The definition of “agency” can mean a lot of different things to different people, but the version the LW community seems to coalesce around is something like “recognizing when irrational factors like social norms and emotional influences are stopping you from pursuing your goals as effectively as possible, and changing your behavior so that you are no longer restrained by those factors”. If that’s what you mean, the article you cited “Seven ways...” is probably as close as you’re going to get. There’s no magic bullet here. I would suggest doing post-mortem reviews on your day-to-day activities and trying to identify moments where in hindsight you let an irrational factor get in your way and you should have behaved more “agently”, and using those as teaching moments going forward.
Another type of “agency” that’s equally valid and fits the definition well, but doesn’t seem to be what you’re talking about, is agency in the sense of having the knowledge and skills to understand and interact with the systems around you in ways that most people don’t bother to do. Orienting Towards Wizard Power is an article that does a great job on this, and if you were just asking for more concrete suggestions to be more agenty in a vacuum I would suggest it, but it doesn’t seem very relevant to AI Safety which you seem to be focused on.
And that’s why I think this article is kind of a contradiction. You’re resting on the assumption that “everyone being more agenty” is what the AI Safety movement needs, and I don’t think that’s true. We already have established paths for people who are trying to devote themselves to the cause as effectively as possible. Either study AI and join the research effort, Earn to Give and devote yourself to making a bunch of money to donate to the cause, or focus on the social/political/marketing side and try to solve the hard problem of convincing the public that AI Safety is a pressing issue. Building more agency as an individual will help you somewhat in all of these pursuits, just like any others, but I don’t see why you have identified it as the main thing holding you and others back.