Ethan Mollick on Knowing When to Use AI
Knowing when to use AI turns out to be a form of wisdom, not just technical knowledge. Like most wisdom, it’s somewhat paradoxical: AI is often most useful where we’re already expert enough to spot its mistakes, yet least helpful in the deep work that made us experts in the first place. It works best for tasks we could do ourselves but shouldn’t waste time on, yet can actively harm our learning when we use it to skip necessary struggles. And perhaps most importantly, wisdom means knowing that these patterns will keep shifting as AI capabilities evolve, and as more research comes in, requiring us to keep questioning our assumptions about where it helps and where it hinders.
The whole post is worth a read, but this idea of AI use being paradoxical is right on. It’s a terrible teacher, even though I use it to learn things (see this post: Updates for 2024-12-04).
It’s not as effective at teaching, but it is effective at getting me to take action, which is sometimes the better part.
via Ethan Mollick