How to Use AI Without Letting It Think for You

How to Personally Use LLMs

00:05Hello everyone. Uh welcome back to my code to care video series. Uh today I thought I would do kind of a different sort of topic which is how to personally use LLM. Uh and I don't want to be too preachy, but I'll at least tell you how I use LLM in the process of of writing something or thinking about a particular uh topic.

00:24And I have a strong belief that writing

Why Writing Is Thinking

00:31is thinking. And by that I mean I'm careful to not use an LLM to think for me. And so I'm careful not to use an LLM to write for me either. But I do use it in the thinking uh process in a way I'll describe. But first of all, I'll give you a few dangers, a few studies that have shown that LOM can cause some problems with um uh with your thinking.

Real-world Examples of LLM Danger

00:58There was a a pretty good study that showed students when they used when they used AI, their uh accuracy on homework improved 48%. And when they stopped using it, it declined. It was 17% worse than the study group of students that didn't use AI at all.

01:17So AI kind of eroded your ability to do your uh homework when when you used it too much. There's another MIT study which was interesting uh and it said that 83% of students after they wrote something couldn't quote their own work when asked uh to give us quote from an essay that they had just written.

01:38Uh and you might say well everybody does that. It's hard to remember what you just did. Um but that was in contrast to 11% uh which was the group that didn't use AI and then just wrote their their essays by hand. Uh and another uh study in the healthcare uh industry was with endoscopists.

02:00um they were using AI to identify um uh particular problems with patients and their identification rate was 28%. Um uh before uh and then while using AI uh and then when AI was taken away that dropped down to 22%. Um and the term that's sometimes used is

AI and the Risk of “Intuition Rust”

02:24intuition rust. which is the more you use AI, the more your own sense of intuition about a situation can erode uh a little bit. And I think it's important not to let this happen. So uh one of the things that I do is use AI, use LLMs and AI very consciously uh and strategically in my work.

02:48And so uh so I'll tell you how I do that. So whenever I do any writing, I think about it in three phases. Uh the

Phase 1: Use LLMs to Expand Your Thinking

02:57first phase is perhaps the prewriting phase and this I use LLMs quite a bit. Uh and I use LLMs mainly for two things. So one you might refer to it as landscaping. So let's say one of the things I'm working on today is a pricing strategy document.

03:14So landscaping would be using an LLM to say, well how are the competitors doing it? or are there different pricing strategies in Europe versus Asia versus the US or that how's pricing evolved over time those kinds of things. So really understanding the landscape doing kind of quick market research uh for you I think is a great use of LLMs.

03:39Uh and then I would say mindexpanding activities. So you might throw out a few ideas and say, "What else could I think of? What would be kind of the universe of ideas?" It's sort of like asking a doctor, "What else could this be?" You're sort of forcing an expansion of the possibilities before you start to converge.

04:04So the second uh step when I write

Phase 2: Write and Edit Without AI

04:07something is just all me I would say. Um, and in this case, it's just plain writing, which I do once, and then editing, which I do once. So, I never let an LLM write the first draft of something for me. And I know that's debatable, but that's just my choice.

04:31So, when I get to the stage, I write it beginning to end without any help. Uh, and I print it out and I edit it once without any help.

Phase 3: Use AI for Grammar and Spelling

04:41Uh and then lastly the last stage is I use an LLM for grammar and spelling only. Okay. So um so basically I'll take the whole thing that I wrote throw it in there and say I want you to give me advice and edits for grammar and spelling only.

05:03So because I want my words to be in the ending document and I don't want the ideas uh changed but sometimes I need help with grammar and spelling. So um so that's the final stage. So this is kind of the way I think about it and the way I use LLM when doing something like like this.

05:19And one way you might think about it is if

AI, Divergent Thinking & Decision-Making

05:24you're familiar with decision theory in decision theory in the beginning you want to be divergent. You want to get all ideas on the table. This might be a group discussion or debate or what have you. And then um and then you want to be convergent.

05:41So, okay, let's finally decide, let's narrow this down. Let's decide what we're going to do. So, you kind of want to narrow the playing field and then pick one option uh in the end. And so, I think LLMs are good for divergence and I think you need to do the convergence of thinking to come up with your own uh idea in the end.

06:01Uh so uh so that's basically the way I do it. Now I realize not every job is like mine. Uh in some cases you might have a writing job and

Using Generative AI More Intentionally

06:10LLM help you be more productive. Um but in my case I have a senior leadership job. So it's more about decision accuracy um and strategy and those kinds of things versus just churning out a lot of writing. So I'm careful not to let LLMs help me but help me in a very strategic uh way.

06:28So, I hope that was interesting and maybe useful to you in the way you

Wrap Up

06:33think about your use of of Gen AI and how it helps you think and do your job. Okay, until next time. Bye.