Practical AI Advice

I felt the same pride I used to feel from writing elegant code, maybe more. Because I wasn't proud of how it worked—I was proud that it worked. Real people were solving real problems, saving real space on their computers, and the feature felt effortless to use.

I'm still technical. I understand systems, architectures, and trade-offs. I can debug cod

Coding is now accessible to anyone who can think clearly. Designers who understand systems. Teachers who grasp how people learn. Writers who structure narratives. Your existing expertise translates directly into building software. You don't need years of syntax memorization. You need to understand problems and communicate solutions.

The key to working with your timid scribe is understanding its strengths and limitations. My experience with AI so far has shown me that AI is brilliant at:

1. Pulling out ideas I didn't know I had (by asking me smart questions)


2. Creating structure from my scattered thoughts


3. Remembering all the context and examples I've shared


4. Generating options when I'm s

Instead of focusing on the process, we want to focus on using AI to improve our inputs. Even if nothing changes in the way we process information, our outputs will be better because we won't have this "garbage in, garbage out" problem. Let's concentrate our efforts on using AI to help us improve our inputs.

Now we can try applying some of these other techniques: Think this through step by step: come up with good analogies for an AI tutor. First, list possible analogies. Second, critique the list and add three more analogies. Next, create a table listing pluses and minuses of each. Next, pick the best and explain it.

I am only human, and in writing this book, I often found myself stuck. In previous books, that could mean a single sentence or paragraph would block hours of writing, as I used my frustration as an excuse to take a break and walk away until inspiration struck. With AI, that was no longer a problem. I would become a Cyborg and tell the AI: I am stuc

The nice thing about this journaling habit is that I have all of the entries. I know exactly what I was thinking at the time. So I grabbed a bunch of them, threw them into Claude, and asked it to pull out the patterns:

“Here are a few journal entries about whether or not to fundraise for Every. Can you help me find patterns that can help me make a