You can have the most polished, professional looking content. Your audience will pick up on the sameness and walk away if there’s no one for them to resonate with behind it.
Echo with this sentence, “Some combination of your taste, your judgment, your way of seeing problems.”
#taste: Steve Jobs once said, “Ultimately, it comes down to taste.” In a 1995 interview, he explained that taste is cultivated by exposing yourself to the best things humans have created and then weaving those elements into your own work. Build your own Substack publication with a good taste.
#judgement: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Herbert Simon mentioned it in his book, The Sciences of the Artificial. Judgement is where taste becomes decision.
#yourwayofseeingproblem: ”You have to be opinionated, but that’s how you’re going to win. There’s no unopinionated software that’s been successful.” Bob Baxley, a designer with more than 35 years of experience at Apple, Disney, Pinterest once said.
I haven’t read it yet. But if its about the use of AI or anything around that. Because obv many people will read it here, I just want to say, no I’m not against AI, I don’t hate it or anything, infact I recognise how utterly useful it is in today’s day and age.
But we should consider appropriate and only required use of AI.
We know AI has SO much impact on the environment. So while we use AI we should keep in mind its consequences and be just a little more conscious of using it and limiting it to only important things.
Dan uses AI the way I do, not to replace writing, but expand option choices, framing, outlining, as an editor for critique etc. But, I don't agree with his categories because he didn't include the one I am in:
4) the intelligent person who is risk averse
These people use AI, but criticize it as well, don't rely only on it, hate it for making humanity sound generic, while seeing practical uses. Knowing the risk it poses, these people both use and protect themselves against AI, building the frameworks for a future economy, while protecting timeless ways of communicating, socializing and processing info that AI threatens to degrade.
Maybe not a great description but more accurate. Like moderates vs dem or republican.
not everyone has to be extreme on one side or another.
Vibing with this. I jumped on the Ai bandwagon because I wanted to learn new stuff on an accelerated pace and I know how tedious it is to search online for information. But I’m open to learn new ways and building the curiosity reading what you said here.
Dan, I really resonate with what your writing workflow looks like now.
Less than 3 months ago, I would’ve never even considered myself a writer. Now I have published 99 blog posts on my website, most of them written within a 60 day period.
How did I do that? I have a specialized subagent built with Claude who I named Allen Kendrick, yes I give my subagents names and personalities. I created Allen Kendrick through a process similar to Prompt Extraction but what I call LLM Instance Cloning.
Then I converted the extracted prompt into a file-based subagent that challenges my drafts to enable me build on my thoughts and then does the whole refinement process by structuring my blog posts into sections, creating the blog file in the appropriate location in my code repository, adds relevant links to previous blog posts and maintains a summary file of every blog post I have written for future reference or for any of my other 12 Subagents to reference. It’s truly remarkable.
I don’t have experience writing without AI… all my writing began after I had worked extensively with AI across multiple domains so my perspective on writing is definitely different but I believe my process is similar to yours in many ways.
Totally agree. AI doesn’t make people smart. It gives people with judgment and curiosity a 100× edge –and turns shallow thinking into 100× more noise. The gap gets clearer, faster.
I call it texture.
You can have the most polished, professional looking content. Your audience will pick up on the sameness and walk away if there’s no one for them to resonate with behind it.
Real
Echo with this sentence, “Some combination of your taste, your judgment, your way of seeing problems.”
#taste: Steve Jobs once said, “Ultimately, it comes down to taste.” In a 1995 interview, he explained that taste is cultivated by exposing yourself to the best things humans have created and then weaving those elements into your own work. Build your own Substack publication with a good taste.
#judgement: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Herbert Simon mentioned it in his book, The Sciences of the Artificial. Judgement is where taste becomes decision.
#yourwayofseeingproblem: ”You have to be opinionated, but that’s how you’re going to win. There’s no unopinionated software that’s been successful.” Bob Baxley, a designer with more than 35 years of experience at Apple, Disney, Pinterest once said.
I haven’t read it yet. But if its about the use of AI or anything around that. Because obv many people will read it here, I just want to say, no I’m not against AI, I don’t hate it or anything, infact I recognise how utterly useful it is in today’s day and age.
But we should consider appropriate and only required use of AI.
We know AI has SO much impact on the environment. So while we use AI we should keep in mind its consequences and be just a little more conscious of using it and limiting it to only important things.
If it was out of context, I apologise.
But this is the best place you can say it in.
Inspiring
Wow.
Dan uses AI the way I do, not to replace writing, but expand option choices, framing, outlining, as an editor for critique etc. But, I don't agree with his categories because he didn't include the one I am in:
4) the intelligent person who is risk averse
These people use AI, but criticize it as well, don't rely only on it, hate it for making humanity sound generic, while seeing practical uses. Knowing the risk it poses, these people both use and protect themselves against AI, building the frameworks for a future economy, while protecting timeless ways of communicating, socializing and processing info that AI threatens to degrade.
Maybe not a great description but more accurate. Like moderates vs dem or republican.
not everyone has to be extreme on one side or another.
Vibing with this. I jumped on the Ai bandwagon because I wanted to learn new stuff on an accelerated pace and I know how tedious it is to search online for information. But I’m open to learn new ways and building the curiosity reading what you said here.
Is that the correct video link?
It is possible to write with AI without it being distinctly AI-y, but it requires an extreme awareness.
Many think they have that awareness, but they don’t. What looks great to them is trite and shallow and same to everyone else.
The default voice of AI is everywhere, coloring everyone and everything.
Everyone will resent it. Few will escape it. Fewer still will capitalize on it.
Dan, I really resonate with what your writing workflow looks like now.
Less than 3 months ago, I would’ve never even considered myself a writer. Now I have published 99 blog posts on my website, most of them written within a 60 day period.
How did I do that? I have a specialized subagent built with Claude who I named Allen Kendrick, yes I give my subagents names and personalities. I created Allen Kendrick through a process similar to Prompt Extraction but what I call LLM Instance Cloning.
Then I converted the extracted prompt into a file-based subagent that challenges my drafts to enable me build on my thoughts and then does the whole refinement process by structuring my blog posts into sections, creating the blog file in the appropriate location in my code repository, adds relevant links to previous blog posts and maintains a summary file of every blog post I have written for future reference or for any of my other 12 Subagents to reference. It’s truly remarkable.
I don’t have experience writing without AI… all my writing began after I had worked extensively with AI across multiple domains so my perspective on writing is definitely different but I believe my process is similar to yours in many ways.
Good one. Thanks.
Totally agree. AI doesn’t make people smart. It gives people with judgment and curiosity a 100× edge –and turns shallow thinking into 100× more noise. The gap gets clearer, faster.
Hey think you attached the wrong YouTube video! But loved the content on articulation, it’s helped me SO much with my writing.
First! Yayayaya