you have to understand the job

you'll get more out of AI if you know the foundations of what you want the robot to do

This post was inspired by a Custom GPT I made recently to help people clarify their thinking before they start writing. If you are a fan of the “voice dump a bunch of rambling thoughts into ChatGPT and ask it to draft something workable” workflow, give it a try. I think you’ll like it!

There is a certain kind of person who gets extremely touchy about other people not appreciating the complexity and depth of their work. These people are often very smart and good at what they do, if a little precious about it. I have found they also tend to be extremely touchy about AI. They scoff at concepts like vibe coding or AI video generation as ways for foolish people to LARP at doing real technical/creative work.

And I get where they are coming from, because foolish people are LARPing at doing real technical/creative work with AI.

Sometimes people are doing totally passable work in this way! And sometimes they are not. The difference between them, I think, is whether they understand the job the AI is doing. If you have a good grasp on the underlying process, the degree to which the AI can help you is amazing. If you don’t, you are likely producing a facsimile of actual good work. (There’s a reason so much of the vibe coding excitement centers on prototypes, which are, of course, facsimiles).

The first lesson I teach in my course on AI Management is task decomposition, or breaking down a problem into discrete parts. I want to convey that using AI to help you solve problems is dangerous if you are not starting with a structured approach to solving problems. Likewise, if I'm going to teach someone how to use AI as a writing helper, I'm going to first teach them a structured approach to writing well. My students often tell me that much of the value they get from my class is learning how to think more clearly. This is intentional!

And I think this is why people often talk past each other with AI. You have people who understand how to do a job well, whether that is coding or writing or filmmaking or whatever, and they see people who not only do not understand how to do the job, but don’t seem to even care, hitting buttons and outputting what they claim is equally good work. This makes them feel disrespected. So they get defensive.

I understand why some people, especially if they're worried about their job safety, would shut down here. "You don't understand! My work is complicated!! You can't simply automate it!!!"

The problem is that it’s hard to go into this mode and not start sounding like:

But have you ever worked with someone who, instead of getting exasperated about how you couldn't possibly understand the complexity of what they do, actually tries to explain it to you in simple terms? I love people like that. I've learned so much from them, and they've inspired me to push myself to do it more. It's a big part of why I've gone so deep on Custom GPTs: they allow you to create a walkthrough, basically, of how you do a thing or how you think. That's so cool!

Here’s an example. A lot of people tell me about this workflow they really like. “I dictate a bunch of thoughts into a giant voice note, and then I paste the dictation into ChatGPT, and I say, can you make this into a coherent thought?” Maybe they are trying to write a memo, or a blog post, or an email, or whatever. I agree it’s a fun workflow. I have always been jealous of what I call “1960s Man Jobs” where, as far as I can tell, the man would lie down on a couch and yap to their secretary who would then do the hard work of turning their ramblings into something coherent and good. (Yes I am basing this off Mad Men). This feels a lot like that. It’s glorious.

But!!! I think this workflow misunderstands the work of “getting to clarity.” You have to beat up your ideas before they are ready for primetime. You have to formulate an argument, a thesis. You need evidence for that argument. You need to consider objections.

These are all things I have learned how to do. Many people do not know how to do this in a reliable and timely way. And much of the advice I see on the subject is not helpful. “Writing is how you get to clear thinking,” people say. Well, OK, but how???

So I made a Custom GPT to help. I call it Wally the Writing Partner. The workflow is basically the same–you paste a transcript of a voice dump into ChatGPT–but then it works with you to tease out the key insights in what you’re saying. It plays back some different potential theses and works with you to land on and refine one. It queries you for evidence, and helps you consider potential counterpoints. It pushes you to clarify your audience and your goal of communicating with that audience. And only then does it offer to help you draft something.

(I use Wispr Flow for all my transcription. I love the product and recommend it to everyone. It is faster, better, and more reliable than any native transcription I have used. But, you can also just use native transcription on your device.)

There are a few things I think are cool here:

1. AI lets you externalize your own thinking/process in a way that allows other people to literally walk through it themselves (vs. simply reading a doc that explains your thinking)

2. In the same way that trying to teach someone how to do a thing will force you to sharpen your own understanding of that thing, the act of externalizing your process to a robot (ie turning it into a Custom GPT prompt) makes you better at your own work

3. Making Custom GPTs can help other people better understand the complexity of what you do, rather than you insisting that what you do is special and important while refusing to break it down in a way that makes sense to anyone else

4. Doing so also helps other people use AI in ways that make them more capable, rather than less. I think this is one of the most important things managers today should be doing for their teams, but I also think anyone who makes themselves useful in this way will find that it makes them more successful

5. Taking the time to understand the foundational process of how to do something well will 100x your ability to use AI effectively for that thing

Try out Wally the Writing Partner here. And if this inspires you to make something similar, please share it with me! I love learning how other people think, do work, and solve problems.

xoxo,

hils