You're better than AI slop

Yelling at software is the new way to operate things
— Even Westvang

Perhaps the most difficult thing about working with AI is filtering through the signal-to-noise ratio that currently pervades AI discourse.

I'm not completely cynical about AI's relationship with my work. It is a new and amazing tool that is never going away. We're not going back. However, I have long-held reservations about its usefulness with limited human intervention.

AI is a revolutionary technology, but it's also being oversold as a one-click solution to all of life's problems. This is particularly true when it comes to conversations around replacing the jobs of creative and information workers, such as those who create content.

AI tools are legendary at creating meaningless content, popularized by the term "AI Slop."

Being too quick to create content without context or meaning is a trap I was falling into until I was corrected in a recent conversation with today's guest, Even Westvang. You can't expect great results without great inputs. So, as great as AI is at creating content, it doesn't know what you don't tell it.

AI is capable of creating unique content, but only if it is guided by someone with a unique point of view.

I've described this as "micromanaging AI," essentially having to write out many small tasks to get a good result. If, like me, you prefer to "do" rather than "plan," this can be a frustrating bit of friction when adopting AI tooling.

This conversation included many light bulb moments, but I think perhaps the best clarity I got is that working with AI tools is like learning a new skill. It's not something we should expect to innately be able to do. It actually changes our workflow. It changes how we approach creating content and performing tasks. It is a new tool and should be treated as one that requires practice to get the best results.

The pace of development in this space is so fast that there are things I would like to have included in this conversation that have changed between recording and publishing it.

For example, I think one of the best ways to work with AI is to prioritize asking it questions over strictly telling it what to do.

I've also found that using voice dictation tools like Superwhisper reduces the friction of having to type out long prompts and additional context. AI tools are extremely capable of structuring unstructured content. So, ramblings captured from your free-flowing conscious can still be processed into well authored, new pieces of content.

This blog post was dictated with Superwhisper, corrected by Grammarly, and then run through Anthropic Claude for one final cleanup.