As AI does more and more of the work, your job becomes understanding what it did. So have it hand its work to you in a form that's easier to understand.
The person who said this is Andrej Karpathy, one of the best-known AI researchers: he helped found OpenAI and led Tesla's self-driving work. He ranked "how to get AI to explain things clearly" into four steps, each better than the last.
2
How your job is changing
BEFORE
Do it yourself, bit by bit
Writing reports, crunching spreadsheets, looking things up: most of your time goes into "doing."
FROM NOW ON
AI does it; you review and sign off
It hands you a huge pile of stuff in minutes. What holds you back is no longer "can't finish," but "can't keep up, can't make sense of it."
So the skill that really matters: make what it hands you something you can grasp at a glance.
3
The four steps
His take: every step is good, but the next one is better.
1. Words, but written differentlyHave it write by the rules used for aircraft repair manuals: one idea per sentence, one meaning per word. If that feels too stiff, say "go for 80 percent."
2. Draw a diagramSeeing what connects to what, and in what order, in one picture is far faster than reading three paragraphs.
3. Make it a web pageClickable, scrollable, animated. The page you're reading right now was made this way, by AI.
4. Make it an explainer videoIt draws as it talks, with sound. This is the step he's most excited about; his words: "this is starting to work."
4
Just say these
Nothing new to learn. Just ask it in a different way:
"Explain it in Simplified Technical English"Step 1
"Draw me a diagram"Step 2
"Make it a web page"Step 3
"Make an explainer video like 3Blue1Brown"Step 4
Steps 1 and 4 each have a detailed page on this site: "How Aircraft Repair Manuals Are Written" and "See It First, Name It Later."
5
Why didn't anyone do this before?
Because it was too expensive. Now it's cheap enough to throw away after one use.
BEFORE
A web page took days; an explainer video took weeks
Just to help you understand one thing? Nobody would pay for that.
NOW
A few minutes, a few cents
Like a paper cup: made for you alone, thrown away once you get it, and next time you ask for a fresh one. He says, "Go ahead and try it. You'll be surprised."
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A few things to watch out for
Pretty isn't the same as correctHowever beautiful the diagram or smooth the video, the facts inside can still be wrong. Anything you'll base a decision on still needs checking.
The higher the step, the longer the wait. When you need an answer in a hurry, one sentence is enough. Don't ask for a video.
Videos with voiceover usually need a dedicated voice service, which means paying for an account. You can also ask the AI to first look for a free option that runs on your own computer.
What does this have to do with me?
Next time the AI sends back a huge block of text and you're dizzy by line three, don't slog through it, and don't blame yourself. Just reply: "Draw it for me."
