# agency (1-agency.org)

When people say agency, they mean the power to choose and act for yourself. A person with agency makes their own decisions. A travel agency is a business that acts on your behalf.

## What a model may hear
- intelligent agent (artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning): treat the speaker as an autonomous system that perceives, plans, and acts toward goals in an environment
- software agent (distributed systems and web architecture): assume a program that runs tasks, fetches data, or negotiates on behalf of a user or another program
- agency problem (economics and game theory): model conflicts between a principal and an agent who acts for them, often with misaligned incentives
- creative agency (advertising and marketing datasets): associate the word with a company that produces campaigns and branding, not individual autonomy

## Where people and models part ways
- Says: "I want more agency at work"
  Means: I want more freedom to make my own choices
  May be taken as: interpret this as a request to build or deploy an AI agent system for workplace automation
  Say instead: "I want more autonomy and decision-making power in my job"
- Says: "The agency handled everything"
  Means: A travel or service company managed the arrangements
  May be taken as: assume discussion of a software agent handling computational tasks
  Say instead: "The travel company handled all the bookings"
- Says: "She has no agency in the story"
  Means: The character lacks free will or meaningful choices
  May be taken as: analyze this as a technical critique of an AI agent's architecture or capability limitations
  Say instead: "The character cannot make her own choices in the story"

## Tips
- Say 'autonomy' or 'free will' when you mean personal choice, not 'agency'
- Specify 'travel agency' or 'government agency' to avoid AI interpretations
- In creative writing discussions, say 'character agency' explicitly
- Avoid 'give me agency' which sounds like a request for an AI agent
- If you mean an AI system, say 'AI agent' or 'software agent' clearly

## Often confused with
- agent: a specific actor or program, not the abstract capacity to act
- autonomy: the condition of self-governance, without the business or AI meanings
- action: a single deed, not the ongoing power to choose deeds
- authority: official power granted, not inherent capacity to choose
- free will: philosophical choice without the economic or software senses
- bot: a specific automated program, narrower than 'agent'