Managing AI

I wrote this book with artificial intelligence, not just about it. In fact, it wouldn't feel right to discuss collaborating with AI without actually doing so in creating these chapters. To write this book, I teamed up with AI language models, unconventional co-authors who helped brainstorm ideas, refine explanations, and even draft sections of the content you're about to read. This experiment in co-authorship was enlightening: it vividly demonstrated how humans and AI can effectively collaborate on creative, complex projects.

Working with AI felt like having an endlessly available creative partner and diligent research assistant by my side. Need an example or a fact-check? The AI offered dozens. Stuck on a complex topic? It provided multiple angles and rewrites to spark my thinking. Naturally, its suggestions weren't always perfect; I often needed to guide it, clarify details, or add personal context only I could provide. But the interplay between my human perspective and the AI's vast knowledge base made the writing process faster and genuinely more enriching. The collaboration proved dynamic: the AI helped articulate and expand upon my initial ideas almost instantly, while I focused on curating, refining, and structuring the final content.

...In fact, some ideas in this book might indirectly stem from you, if you've ever shared your thoughts, contradictions, goals, or ideas online, which then shaped the AI's training data. Your voice, in this way, may be part of these pages. This represents a core theme: Shared Intelligence. When humans and AI collaborate closely, they create results neither could produce alone.

The goal of this book is to help you embrace and effectively navigate this new mode of collaborative working. It contains practical guidance and metaphors refined through iterative dialogue with AI, capturing the collaborative spirit at the heart of my experience. Sometimes, that dialogue yielded surprising results, even turning a simple mistyped word into a richer concept like 'contradictions,' as detailed in the appendix, a testament to the unexpected paths this collaboration can take. I hope that by reading a book co-created with AI, you'll not only learn about managing AI but also witness firsthand what's achievable.

The best way to understand emerging technology is by actively engaging with it. Consider this book your invitation to experiment, learn, and discover your own approach to working with the intelligent tools now at your fingertips.