I’ve been using AI for business reasons, by asking it to prepare managerial documents and it feels like it is not able to take a stance unless I nudge it. Then it dawned on me: It’s an assistant with a PhD.
It’s like the most prepared professional you’ve ever met, that’s also docile. It’s not opinionated. You, as the commander, give it your opinion, the general direction you want it to take, and it develops it. But you need to have a vision. You can ask it to help you clear your vision, but you must have the blurry seed.
If you don’t have a vision, if you don’t have a seed of what you want, AI cannot give it to you. It can propose some ideas and then you can adopt one, but it cannot “demand it” from you.
It’s making the job much easier by offloading from your menial tasks. So, you have more free time, free mental energy to spend as you need on what really needs to be done (in realising the vision) that’s not yet AI-taken. By making your work more efficient, you can bet you’ll print more output as an individual. It’s a tool for extreme performance. AI is there to complete your missing parts, on a “good enough” basis.
Ask yourself: What is it that you have that is irreplaceable? You must develop a superior understanding of your expertise and industry and then you can rely on AI to assist you in doing the boring parts. There’s no skipping the superior understanding part because that’s where the outstanding value will come from.
Let’s use an example to make it less abstract: Let’s say you’re an UI/UX Specialist by trade, and you need to create some mockups. Attempt to have a solid idea of the product first and then craft the prompt that will get you there. With your superior understanding of the matter, you’ll realize that AI made some mistakes. No worries, just fix them yourself or prompt again.
But what if your job is truly menial? If your job is menial, or repetitive in nature, then yes: AI is going to take your job. AI adds a ton of value; it just cannot add that exceptional value we only humans can. If the AI is holding the full weight of what you do, you’re in big trouble. You need to be outsmarting AI on your profession. AI is not a crutch when you hold the knowledge yourself as well.
This is not a post about the human touch AI cannot bring, this post is about you, skilling up on what AI cannot bring: Sense of direction, vision, strong opinions, risk taking, accountability and ownership, agency. Truths that few people agree on.
I think most jobs (if not all), will become Prompt Engineering jobs, eventually. That’s a post for another day.
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