I’ve noticed there are some fairly distinct opinions about AI in here (and that’s a good thing - I appreciate diversity of thought). There’s a view - and I’m certainly hearing it *everywhere* right now - that success is end-to-end from a model. No human involved. And I have some very strong human in the loop opinions. And so do some others in here. (And if I change that “in”’ to “on”, we get one more). So I have been talking to @Gabriel Azoulay in here about *stakes*. How I tackle things and consider them to figure out what does and doesn’t need my brain and why. Here is some food for thought about my perspective in this area. I think about this in layers. And some of them are orthogonal. But ultimately, we start big and go small. (And then we get to the orthogonal piece at the end, if I haven’t lost you). The big gates: 1. Domain - right at the top for a reason. Is this a high stakes, sensitive domain or a regulated industry? I’m talking medical, legal, financial services? If so, you have to make sure that you are meeting the high bar that the domain requires *and* the regulatory requirements. If yes, tread cautiously and involve experts. If no, continue on. 2. What is the potential for harm? How much could this hurt someone if it goes wrong? - could this have financial consequences for them? Could it hurt children? Genuinely, I stop and ask myself this. There are areas where many are happy to use AI - measuring job fit for example - where I am pretty selective. My view: this could affect whether or not someone gets a job. That could have massive potential harm on someone who is overlooked not because they are not right for the job but because a model didn’t have the right context to see it (and yes, baked in bias, I am looking squarely at you). Everyone has got to make their own decisions on where this sits that is right for them, but you should be thinking about it upfront in two ways: should this mean you don’t do it at all? If you do proceed because the level of harm exposure is within tolerance, *what are you doing to REDUCE and MITIGATE the potential for harm exposure?*. This should be decided upfront, not baked in later. 3. Reputational harm potential. If this goes wrong and you or your company end up hammered in public for it, what does that look like? Does that look like “they engineered badly” or “they happily gambled with the safety, privacy and wellbeing of minors with no forethought?”. Not the same thing. Worth pausing to consider.

My daughter @Brooke Hays has been studying cognitive functions for five years. She's 17, just graduated, and looking to become a holistic health coach. Last month, she typed 18 of my OS agents in one night using this framework. Today, she ran a live experiment for us on the Bullhorns & Bullseyes podcast. Two ChatGPT Projects (specialized agents). Same base model. Same prompt. Same input. Different cognitive functions wired into the instructions. Leora (Ne-Ti): came back with five ranked hypotheses and started asking unprompted follow-up questions. Her job was to explore the possibility space before locking anything down. Malachi (Ni-Te): one sentence on what was happening, then step-by-step logic, then exact next actions. No hypotheses. No exploration. Just the path. Same prompt. Different mind. Here's the operator problem: most agent teams are built like a roster of Michael Jordans. Same base model, same instruction pattern, same cognitive shape. You get consistency, but you lose the thing Rodman gave the Bulls - the guy who couldn't shoot and was irreplaceable anyway. The Bulls of the 90's had Jordan, Pippen, Grant, Kerr, Cartwright, Rodman, Kukoc. The argument we're proposing is that you want a diverse team. A diverse team of specialists, correctly assembled, is better than a team full of 5 Michael Jordans. Or take the 2002 Oakland Athletics, for example, made famous by the movie Moneyball. The A's featured a mix of college draftees, veteran players, and international all-stars. The diversity of the team wasn't just in their backgrounds; it was cognitive as well. With a front office that was willing to value unorthodox styles, older players, and statistical indicators that the rest of MLB ignored. Here's how we see it: your research agent and your copywriting agent should not think the same way. A Ne-Ti research agent generates possibilities and asks questions you didn't think to ask. An Ni-Te execution agent closes the loop and tells you what to do next. Run them in sequence and you've got a team. Wire them the same and you've got one guy doing everything at half capacity.

🎟️ PRIZE: FREE SEAT IN THE LYCEUM 🎟️ Pick your cohort. Technical, Business, or Creator. Your call. ---- 📋 THE CHALLENGE You are the client this week. No fictional Marcus. No fictional Sarah. No fictional Devon. Pick a real problem in your own life or work. Build the folder-based specialist you wish you had. This is the capstone of Month 2. The challenge flips. Instead of building for someone else, you write your own brief and solve it for yourself. ---- 🎯 THE TWIST The hard part isn't building. The hard part is scoping. Picking the right problem is harder than solving the wrong one. Most people pick problems that are too small or too vague. The skill this week is treating yourself like a real client. Be specific about what's broken. Be specific about what you need. Don't pick "I want to be more productive." Pick "I waste two hours every Sunday night writing the same kind of LinkedIn carousel posts and I need a folder that handles 80% of the draft work so I can focus on the hook and the visuals." That's a real brief. Specific problem. Specific scope. Specific desired output. ---- 🗂️ TWO DELIVERABLES THIS WEEK This is the only week with two pieces: 1️⃣ Your own client brief. 250 words or less. Describe the problem you're solving for yourself. Treat yourself like a real client. What's broken? What have you already tried? What do you need? 2️⃣ The folder system that solves it. Same structure as every week: - 📄 identity.md - 📐 rules.md - 💬 examples.md - 📚 reference/ - 📖 README.md Your brief lives at the top of the repo as brief.md so judges can read it before they look at the folder. ---- 🔥 THE ANGLE THIS WEEK Anyone can follow a brief. Writing your own, then solving it, then shipping it as a usable folder is a portfolio piece that demonstrates judgment, not just execution. This is the skill that separates "AI hobbyist" from "AI builder." Anyone can prompt their way through a problem someone else handed them. Scoping a problem, designing the solution, and shipping it as a system is what real work looks like. 💪

Evidently 35 to 45 year olds can't adjust and a self proclaimed Harvard Business School graduate just said so. Lamenting the firing of people he's known and loved for many years, while at the same time says he's hiring, just said age plays a role in people's ability to adjust to new ways of working. That's the read on the surface of this guy, but what is the real problem he's facing? https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matt-graham-nocode_ai-is-making-some-of-my-employees-obsolete-share-7475533300959477760-UE3Q/?highlightedUpdateUrn=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7475533302351732736&origin=SOCIAL_SHARE&utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAAC2KABGgDyj7_CORV0TYkn0dSmOMRHNmo

Hello Clief Notes Family! You may have noticed that I have not been posting as much. Some of that has been intentional, I was posting a lot and being number 1 feels good, but seeing others who work so hard to bring knowledge and value to our community shining feels good also! Another big portion of why I have not been posting is that I have been chasing my dream, I have applied to many ambassador programs and I have been ghosted or I have not been the right fit for them. This does not mean I was not the right fit to be an AI ambassador! I wanted to share, that today is different, today I have won, I have been accepted as Generative AI Ambassador in the company I work for! I will be giving workshops, writing articles and sharing my knowledge with my colleagues everyday, I will be Teaching about AI, 2 of my passions in one place! Teaching and AI. I wanted to thank you all for being one of the most supportive, inspiring, and impactful forces in my life. You have all given me the confidence, the energy, and the care I needed to keep pushing for this. We truly learn, grow, and win together 🤓💪🏆 With all of my heart! THANK YOU 🙏