Welcome to the next She Writes AI interview episode covering our second book collaboration stream for the AI Everywhere series. In this new cohort, we’re exploring the personal journeys and professional expertise of 32 authors from 18 countries worldwide who are redefining our relationships with machine intelligence. If you’re new to SheWritesAI, welcome! We’re a free, inclusive community of 760+ women and nonbinary writers in 60+ countries worldwide, with a focus on AI and data. Allies of all genders are welcome. For more insights from interviewer Farida Khalaf, see her Lights On by Farida newsletter or youtube.com/@faridakhalaf25. About My Guest: Jax NiCarthaigh Today I (Farida Khalaf) am joined by Jax NiCarthaigh, an Australian living systems practitioner and applied cybernetics researcher. A self-described "finder and sharer of good ideas," Jax focuses on the intersection of technology, humanity, and ecological health. Drawing on her deep background in cybernetics and indigenous-informed perspectives, she brings a vital lens to the AI conversation, one that moves beyond mere efficiency toward the preservation of human agency. Her central thesis is that we must stop treating AI as a neutral tool and start recognizing it as a relational partner in a complex, living system where our choices have 175-year consequences. In this interview, Jax NiCarthaigh explores her framework for Reclaiming Human Agency, where users move beyond passive reaction to intentional "dancing" with AI. She breaks down the shift from the "productivity trap" to a practice of living sense-making, using her PLANET Compass to navigate the social, technical, and environmental impact of our digital choices. Jax highlights the hidden risks of the "Crutch Trap," where we inadvertently outsource our judgment to machines, and introduces the Gen2200 perspective: a challenge to act with the integrity and reciprocity required by those who will inherit the earth seven generations from now. Want to read a preview of Jax’s chapter? Volunteer as an ARC reader! Interview With: Jax NiCarthaigh Below is a summary of Jax NiCarthaigh’s video interview responses to Farida Khalaf’s questions on her chapter: A For Agency: Reclaiming Human Agency In An AI World. Intended Audience: Creatives, leaders, and thoughtful technology users who want to lead a more conscious, agency-rich life while navigating the complexities of the AI era. Questions Discussed: Dancing with the System: You use the metaphor of “dancing” with AI rather than trying to control or figure it out. Why is this reciprocal relationship the key to maintaining human agency in the AI era? Jax: We keep asking how we can control AI or whether AI will control us, Dancing helps us choose a relationship instead. Neither partner controls the other, but both influence each other. That’s where human agency lives, I believe. In the space between control and surrender. A for Agency: Your PLANET framework originally used “Audience” for the letter A. What specific realization caused you to shift that to “Agency,” and why is PLANET better described as a “living compass” than a fixed set of instructions? Jax: When I first started using AI, I drew on my communication background. Writers are always thinking about the audience. I thought that LLMs were about communication. The more I experimented with AI, taught AI, wrote about it and talked to others, the more I realized that the important question wasn’t the “how” we used AI or communicated, it was about “who” we were becoming. As we started podcasting and using PLANET more, it seemed a critical move — Agency became a more central concept. I stopped calling PLANET a framework, because frameworks are fixed. A compass helps you orient yourself. We can imagine compasses however we choose — as Jerry Michaelski says, ‘follow the bubbles up’. “We shouldn't try to 'control' AI, but instead learn to dance with it — choosing how we move, when to stop, and how to retain our sense of self.” - Jax The Generation of 2200: You use “Gen2200” as a long-horizon compass. How does imagining the needs of people living 175 years from now change the questions we should be asking about AI today? Jax: Gen2200 isn’t about predicting the future in 2200; it’s more about changing the questions and being more intentional about our thinking and our actions today. What we optimize for, right now. Instead of asking “How do we use AI to help us become more powerful, or even to save the world?”, we might ask “What kind of humans are we hoping AI will help us to become?” AI as Part of Humanity: You quote Peter Kaminski saying AI is “part of humanity” rather than something “out there.” How does this perspective return responsibility to “mere mortals” rather than treating AI as an unstoppable force? Jax: Pete Kaminski’s idea that AI is ‘part of humanity’ really clicked for me. Up until then, it’s very easy to talk about AI as if it’s an external force happening to us. But if AI is part of humanity, then it’s made from human choices, human values, and human systems. The minerals come from the earth. The data comes from us. The models are designed by people. We’re no longer spectators when we look at it this way; we are participants. I also think it helps us move beyond the binary. We spend a lot of time asking whether AI is good or bad. As if answering that absolves us or responsibility. If AI is part of humanity, then the more interesting question is: “What kind of humanity are we putting into these systems, and what kind of humanity are they inviting back out of us?” This returns responsibility to ordinary people. We all have agency in the relationship. The “L is for Language” Trap: You share a personal story about how using ChatGPT to review an essay led to “accidental disrespect” by overriding your own judgment. What is the warning sign that AI assistance has turned into “outsourcing”? Jax: This was a very humbling moment. I used ChatGPT to edit an article and gradually stopped noticing where my own judgement had slipped away. The warning sign wasn’t that AI was wrong. I had stopped asking whether the writing still reflected what I had intended, and my values, and in this case to highlight what another writer was saying. That was not in line with my values — I was unconsciously outsourcing to AI. That was a good lesson to learn. A hard one, but a good one. Values are Not Neutral: Many view AI as clinical or objective, but you argue it is “heavily value-laden” from mineral mining to model design. How can users begin to identify the values they are entering into a relationship with when they prompt a model? Jax: People often imagine AI as mathematical. At the school of cybernetics I am part of, we say “AI is maths, not magic”. That’s true, but that also makes it sound very objective. There are values baked in maths, in how we use it, in what questions we answer. All technology, including AI, are the same. Every system reflects human choices: mining materials, collecting data, designing models. Rather than thinking AI is neutral, I think we should ask: “What values am I entering into a relationship here?” “Agency is not evenly distributed ... we must wear 'super-strong seeing glasses' to recognize the power structures and colonial assumptions baked into the technology.” - Jax Agency as Belonging: Drawing on Rebecca Mbaya’s insights, you describe agency as “a sense of ownership and a sense of belonging.” How do we ensure that those closest to AI’s material foundations are not furthest from its decision-making power? Jax: Rebecca Mbaya has a talent for cutting through the fog to reveal the human side of AI and colonialism. Agency is a sense of ownership and belonging. That’s a powerful way to seeing the world. If people don’t see themselves as represented, respected, or invited into shaping these systems, it’s very hard to exercise agency. Belonging isn’t separate, it’s one of the conditions that makes it possible. Pulling Back the Blanket: You discuss how AI can surface underlying power structures like colonialism, such as biased image generation of Africa. Why is “representation” not just a side issue, but a core component of agency? Jax: I like this blanket metaphor because until I heard Paul Wong say it, I thought I was seeking out answers, or some kind of knowledge that equaled truth. Not that I would have expressed it this way at the time. Whenever I thought I had the answer to something, or had some breakthrough in understanding, he would remind me of the blanket, and the other side of this knowledge. “What has been obscured?” It was sooooo frustrating, but he was right. (And he will the first to say that, at the same time, he also isn’t right.) AI can actually expose hidden assumptions in the same way. Rebecca’s examples of image generation about Africa weren’t really about the pictures — it helped show that the assumptions were built into the system. We can think we are seeing or understanding a truth, but actually there is always another side. One thing Rebecca Mbaya says in that interview is that we know there’s another side. Representation matters because it calls this out. It shapes who feels they belong. Country and Context: Even when discussing high-tech systems, you emphasize the importance of “Country” and Indigenous traditions. Why is it essential to consider where physical minerals come from and our reciprocal responsibility to the earth in AI conversations? Jax: It is easy to think AI is purely digital, somewhere located in the clouds. But it isn’t. It begins with the earth. The minerals, energy, water, and people. We are fro the earth and of the earth too — though we constantly forget this. Indigenous traditions remind us that technology doesn’t exist separate from Country. That broadens the conversati
