Start by Tinkering
Like many people, I’ve heard a lot about AI over the past few years. It’s been a hot topic at a major healthcare IT conference I attend for work. While I remain skeptical that AI will replace humans anytime soon, I don’t doubt its power or potential. I do think it will significantly impact how we live and work.
In recent months, I’ve noticed a growing push to integrate AI into everyday tasks. As a knowledge worker, I’m interested in leveraging AI to be more efficient with my work. Being late to the game, I’ve found diving into AI overwhelming. There are so many tools, models, and platforms out there that it’s hard to know where to start.
As someone who is analytical in nature, it’s tempting to start by learning the theory. But I’ve learned that the best way to learn is to dive in immediately and start tinkering:
…most things that we believe were “invented” by universities were actually discovered by tinkering and later legitimized by some type of formalization. The knowledge we get by tinkering, via trial and error, experience, and the workings of time, in other words, contact with the earth, is vastly superior to that obtained through reasoning, something self-serving institutions have been very busy hiding from us.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb
It is only after some trial and error—taking action first and doing the thing—that learning some theory will be most beneficial.
Lately, I’ve been taking small steps to learn how to leverage AI. For me, the first step is to build familiarity and form the habit of using AI regularly as a tool. Here are a few ways I’ve been using AI:
Proofreading my writing
Summarizing large amounts of text
Researching topics (at least initially)
There is much more potential that I have not explored yet, but these are the small steps that I am taking. Over time, I will adopt more advanced use cases.
Food for Thought
Ali Abdaal recently published a great video for learning how to leverage AI. Some key points that I liked:
Build a daily habit of using AI for small tasks such as summarizing meetings or doing initial research
Use AI as a coach to provide feedback
Use AI as a worker to delegate tasks such as writing to