The attention economy is now an agent economy: AI allocates your focus
DrKavner · x · 2026-10-07
The next fight for your attention won't look like a notification storm — it will be a polite AI agent quietly deciding what deserves your time, what can wait, and what never reaches you:
- Classic digital overload came from volume; the new problem is preselection. Agents choosing which email gets a reply or which article is worth reading act as choice architecture.
- Defaults strongly shape human decisions (e.g. organ donation), so an agent's defaults are a quiet instruction about what counts as normal.
- Interruptions leave cognitive residue, so fragmentation has real costs even when people appear faster.
The real question isn't whether AI saves time, but whether you still own the priorities shaping your mind. (Post includes a promo for the author's consulting service.)
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