There's a narrative about AI and human skills that frames things as a replacement story. AI gets better at X, so X becomes less valuable for humans to develop. There's something to that narrative in certain domains. But it misses a counter-force that's happening at the same time, quietly, in almost every professional context. Some human skills aren't being devalued by AI. They're being amplified. And the most important one: the one that now sits at the center of every AI-assisted workflow, is something most people have never deliberately developed. The ability to give clear direction. ------------- Context ------------- Every AI interaction starts with a human providing input. That input determines the quality of everything that follows. A clear, specific, well-structured brief produces output that requires minimal revision. A vague, incomplete, loosely structured brief produces output that requires significant rework, or that misses the mark entirely and gets scrapped. Before AI, the cost of poor direction-giving was bounded. A vague brief to a colleague produced a back-and-forth that eventually clarified what was needed. The extra time was real but finite, and the human on the receiving end could ask questions, make reasonable assumptions, and draw on shared context to fill gaps. AI can ask clarifying questions, but it can't draw on shared context it hasn't been given. It fills gaps with whatever seems statistically reasonable based on its training, which may or may not match what was actually needed. And unlike a human colleague, it doesn't know what it doesn't know. It produces confident output based on the information available, whether or not that information was sufficient. The result is that the quality of direction-giving is now directly and immediately visible in the quality of output. There's no human buffer to compensate for vague input. The brief is the foundation, and if the foundation is weak, everything built on it is too. ------------- Why Most People Haven't Developed This Skill -------------

In this video, I break down the new releases from Anthropic: Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5. While Mythos 5 is still not available to the public, Fable is (note: it's been removed and hopefully be back up soon), and I show you exactly what it's capable of right now. Enjoy!

As you prepare for the week ahead, don't start with your to-do list. Start with your not-to-do list. Because most people aren't overwhelmed by a lack of opportunity. They're overwhelmed by a lack of clarity. Every week, we carry things that no longer serve us: Old worries. Unnecessary obligations. Endless scrolling. Conversations we've replayed a hundred times.T asks that make us feel productive but never move our lives forward. The challenge isn't that we have too little time. It's that too much of our time gets spent on things that don't deserve it. Your future isn't shaped only by what you choose to pursue. It's shaped by what you're willing to release. So before Monday arrives, ask yourself: What do I need to stop carrying? What do I need to stop saying yes to? What do I need to stop giving my energy to? The life you want may not require more effort. It may require more intention. And that starts with deciding what no longer gets a seat at your table this week.