A Particular Set of Skills
Summarize with AI or RTFM
I have a lot of drafts that I’ve written but haven’t published and they are getting pretty long. I’ve revised and rewritten, but my natural style is to explain in detail. I think details matter. If you know your audience, it’s easier and I summarize at work all of the time to the best of my ability.
Since this is more of my creative and brain dump space. I’ve decided to do what I do naturally.
With that said, feel free to use AI to summarize. I’m pretty sure that’s why that feature was invented. While I can’t take credit for the feature itself, there are some who might think that I emailed a product group at Microsoft and it spawned the idea. Who knows?
There may end up being a cautionary tale here though. With AI it is more important than ever to understand your learning style. If all you need are summaries and ideas then that format works. As an engineer the details matter, and I am definitely a RTFM (Read The Fucking Manual) type.
New Ideas vs Regurgitation
I think there is a decent metric here to measure what you are absorbing and processing. As you use AI, listen to podcasts, watch the news, or talking to friends/colleagues. How much are you parroting back about what you heard someone else say vs truly processing it and creating a new idea or applying a detailed perspective. In my opinion, this is what we need more of.
AI is helpful for everyone if you know how to use it, but at its core it is going to give the appearance of elevation for many people. The good news is that masking your shortcomings can be a good thing.
As noted, I have diarrhea of the keyboard and AI summaries help me a lot at work to mask this serious medical condition. I’m not ashamed of it. This is a feature and not a bug for my career path and is part of what makes me good at what I do.
It’s also quite common. Stephen King has this condition. He just wants to keep writing and has to haphazardly force an ending. Sorry Mr. King, but I feel a kinship. Feel free to use my name and kill me off in a horrible way in your books if you read this. I’m a fan. Not Misery level (yet), but there’s still time.
Yeah, Yeah, Whatever You Say Word Vomit Guy, I’m Busy
I’ve got a longer draft on this coming, but I think it’s important to share what I think may happen. Here is a thought experiment based on several companies requiring you to use AI in your job. See this article from the Washington Post (AI Required), if you haven’t heard of this.
There are many reasons to mandate AI use. AI is a force multiplier if you know how to use it. Asking the right questions to AI in the right way is very important. This is no different than the common interview question/answer of “I don’t know, but I know how to find the answer”, being a good trait in an employee.
It does have its downsides though. Every question/response is logged. This is part of AI Security. It’s used to evaluate AI, but can also be used for many other things. For example, if I’m evaluating the value of a position or employee and they are just regurgitating or acting as a relay 99% of the time for what a bot says then what value does that position have?
This is a challenge we will all have to answer. For me personally, I’m analyzing how AI affects my approach. Does it turn me into a relay or make me lazy with no independent thought or insight? Right now, I would say no. In some cases, it causes more work because context windows (input/output) are too small, and various configuration issues get in the way of doing valuable work with AI in many Enterprises.
This is just my .02, but keep an eye on this. If the job is no longer challenging (challenging == fun) then it’s time to move to something more growth oriented. Don’t let it catch you by surprise. Change is the only constant as agentic AI eats the world.