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Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

(remark.ing)
175 points koch | 2 comments | 06 Jul 25 21:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.858s | source
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keiferski ◴[07 Jul 25 11:37 UTC] No.44489224[source]▶
I have gotten much more value out of AI tools by focusing on the process and not the product. By this I mean that I treat it as a loosely-defined brainstorming tool that expands my “zone of knowledge”, and not as a way to create some particular thing.

In this way, I am infinitely more tolerant of minor problems in the output, because I’m not using the tool to create a specific output, I’m using it to enhance the thing I’m making myself.

To be more concrete: let’s say I’m writing a book about a novel philosophical concept. I don’t use the AI to actually write the book itself, but to research thinkers/works that are similar, critique my arguments, make suggestions on topics to cover, etc. It functions more as a researcher and editor, not a writer – and in that sense it is extremely useful.

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1. zeroto100 ◴[07 Jul 25 12:02 UTC] No.44489443[source]▶
Agree - I tend to think of it as offloading thinking time. Delegating work to an agent just becomes more work for me, with the quality I've seen. But conversations where I control the context are both fun and generally insightful, even if I decide the initial idea isn't a good one.
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2. keiferski ◴[07 Jul 25 12:26 UTC] No.44489647[source]▶
That is a good metaphor. I frequently use ChatGPT in a way that basically boils down to: I could spend an hour thinking about and researching X basic thing I know little about, or I could have the AI write me a summary that is 95% good enough but only takes a few seconds of my time.