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Wise Minds, New Tools
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Stop 2 of 13

Tell it who you are and what you want

You will get a useful answer on the first or second try, most of the time, instead of a vague one you have to fight with.

It cannot see your kitchen, your calendar, or the fence you have been arguing about. Tell it, and the answer improves more than you would expect.

Do this

  1. Ask something deliberately vague: write a note to my neighbor. Read what comes back. It will be perfectly written and completely useless.
  2. Now ask the same thing with three things added: who you are, what you actually want, and how long it should be. Write a short, friendly note to my neighbor asking him to trim the tree overhanging my driveway. We get on well and I do not want to sound annoyed. Four sentences.
  3. Read the second one. If it is still not right, add the missing detail and ask once more.

Watch it done first, if you would rather

Let my human assistant John show you what that looks like. He does the same thing you are about to do, at the same speed, with nothing edited out.

Filming This one is not recorded yet. Everything you need is written out above, and the video will appear here when it is ready.

What just happened

Nothing changed about the assistant between those two questions. What changed was how much it had to work with.

The first version had to guess who you are, what the note is for, and how it should sound. It picked the most average possible answer, because average is the safest guess when it knows nothing.

Three details removed most of the guessing. That is the whole skill, and it is not a technical one. There is no special language, no magic words, no correct format. You are just telling somebody what you want, the way you would tell a helpful stranger.

A useful habit: if an answer disappoints you, the question is usually the thing to fix, not the tool.

If something did not go as expected

It made the note far too formal.
Tell it so. Less formal. The way I would actually talk. Tone is one of the easiest things to correct.
It invented details I never gave it, like my neighbor’s name.
It fills gaps when you leave them. Say do not invent names or details I have not given you and ask again.
How much detail is too much?
There is essentially no upper limit that matters for everyday use. Long, rambling questions work fine. Write it the way you would say it out loud.

The view from here: Why context changes everything