When deciding if and how to leverage AI tools in my work, I find it helpful to think about a breakdown of the work’s value between the process and the output. The more biased the value distribution is towards the end result, the more we should utilize AI tools. When the value distribution is primarily in the process, we likely should refrain from using AI. When there is significant value in both the process and the output, we need to be intentional with how we use AI tools.
The value of most school assignments is in the process of completing the work and not the output. The fact that you hand in a math worksheet with correct answers is not valuable in and of itself. The value was in the process for you to get to those answers. The output only holds value when it demonstrates the learning that took place during the process. So, this seems like an area where we should steer clear of AI or at most use it cautiously.
Some professional work only has value in the output. Let’s say for example that you need to produce a timeline of events captured in a long document. Manually reading through the document and typing out the facts doesn’t add any value and requires effort. This is indeed “drudgery” and a prime case to use an AI tool to do the work.
Now, where things get more complicated is in professional writing and communications. The output here is absolutely valuable. At the same time, the practice of effectively communicating builds your critical-thinking skills and empathy. Completely outsourcing your writing to AI will likely atrophy those abilities. Professional editors serve as a clear indicator that even very good writers produce better work with assistance. Thinking of AI tools like a human editor feels like a good model to get the best of both worlds. I recommend writing first without any sort of AI assistance. Once you feel that your writing is reasonably complete and you have self-edited it, turn on your AI editor and review the suggestions. Just like with a human editor, it can catch mistakes you missed and offer improvement suggestions. Making this part of your review provides an opportunity for you to learn and improve. It can be impossible to ignore AI suggestions if you enable it while actively writing, thus reducing the value produced by having to think on your own.
The prioritization for reading makes more sense in the inverse order of writing. Starting with an AI-generated summary can help you decide if a particular source is worth your time and attention. AI summaries can help remove the drudgery of time wasted on reading that isn’t relevant to you. This still assumes that you are deeply reading some things to benefit from that process.
Be intentional in your use of AI to maximize it capability to develop your skills, improve the quality of your output, and to reduce worthless effort.