Enough of the Generalities - Get Something Done
I read another one of those AI-and-the-future-of-work pieces this week in the New York Times. You know the type, a bunch a bunch of interviews and opinions from experts pondering whether AI is going to take everyone’s job, take just a big enough chunk of jobs to create a human revolt against the machines, or deliver us into a life sipping matcha tea lattes while painting on the beach. Typically these pieces drag us through a few thousand words toggling between these kinds of future-state scenarios and landing nowhere. Why do I read this stuff?
What’s this one about?
The aforementioned NYT article features excerpts from a panel discussion (it’s not even a real article!) that runs this same “what’s AI gonna do to us?” script, and purports to answer one critical question. How should a college student today, or really any worker staring down all this uncertainty, prepare for the AI future of work?
As expected, the panelists bounce around from future view to future view. AI eats everyone’s work, wealth accrues to a few platforms and like 0.001% of humans, and the rest of us either coast through an AI-served life or end up in a gigantic Amazon warehouse on Mars. The theme that keeps appearing is the general advice that you should supervise agents while they work for you. But nobody gets specific, there’s no detailed takeaway that a 22-year old college grad or a 37-year old manager can execute on tomorrow.
Why is this important?
We all sort of get the deal. AI is creating a ton of economic value, well at least it’s generating a ton of capital expenditure investment. It’s just not moving the needle for you by making it easier to find purposeful work or become more productive at the job you currently have. Articles that paint our alternate futures in generalities don’t help. What helps is a specific, do-this-now description of how to create value for yourself with AI.
If you’re 22 to 55 years old, the real threat isn’t that AI shows up and makes you more productive. It’s that you don’t figure out how to make it work for you before it’s too late. “Go manage your AI agents” sounds like advice for a company with an engineering team you don’t actually have access to. The do-it-all autonomous agent world is fantasy land right now. What can make you more valuable is building a simple workflow to handle a chunk of your work that consumes a lot of time but barely uses your brain.
How can you do this?
Start from the problem, not the AI tooling. Write the goal you want to achieve this week in a simple, plainly written sentence in your voice before you touch any AI system. Something like “I want Monday’s business development pipeline status report to build itself” beats any clever prompt. That sentence is your northstar.
Next, ask your AI tool to build the simplest version, and then use it several times to decide how to improve it. AI’s shortcoming isn’t that it provides too little information, it’s that it overproduces and overwhelms. Have you ever asked something like “Can you outline a career plan for me to consider for the next 5-10 years” and ended up with a few thousand words that you can barely figure out what to prioritize? Pick one northstar, ship the rough version, and iterate in small steps from there until you have what you need.
Finally, your move depends on where you sit career-wise. If you’ve got years of experience, put it to work. An account manager who’s written quarterly reviews for fifteen years feeds an assistant her four best ones, then lets it draft each new review in her style while she adds the strategic input only she can provide. A half-day of work becomes an hour. If you’re early in your career, build the tool you wish existed. An operations coordinator two years in describes the Monday report he dreads trying to draft, has AI assemble the template, and turns three hours into twenty minutes.
The real unlock is putting these two people together. The veteran knows what “great” looks like, the newcomer moves fast in the tools, and that pairing is how to redefine the apprenticeship ladder that’s at risk of breaking inside of companies and organizations.
Now, go get something done
This week, pick one meaningful outcome and build the smallest version of it. Write a one sentence description of what’s needed, describe or input one example of “great”, and then iterate a couple rounds. Now you’ve built a workflow that proves you can create value with AI instead of just drowning in it. Do it again and again and you’ve got a real edge, the demonstrated ability to make AI work for you instead of the other way around.
NextPlay>Forward AI Disclaimer: I very actively use artificial intelligence and large language models to generate the content you read here, but I do review it and edit it to make sure it can be generally useful to people who read it. Keep in mind that AI can make mistakes - check important information. Let me know if I make any errors and I will correct them.