What we believe about AI.
AI can be super useful. It can also waste your time, flatter you, and do things you should have done yourself. These are the beliefs behind anything we build, and the tests every idea has to pass.
What AI is good for
There’s a lot of useful information out there. Finding it means digging through ads, long articles, and increasingly, things another AI wrote. Getting an answer shouldn’t take an afternoon.
That’s a good job for AI. Find the information, check the sources, and give you an answer you can use. Same with the long email or document you don’t have time to read.
What should stay yours
Some things are worth doing yourself. A personal note. An assignment meant to teach you something. Emotional support and counseling. Simple math you should be able to do in your head. If the point of the work is that you did it, having a machine do it takes the point away. We don’t want to lose our humanity to AI brain rot.
That doesn’t mean you can’t get help. Bring your rough draft, ask where your argument is weak, or work through something you don’t understand. AI should help without taking over.
Get to the point
You ask a simple question, you should get a short answer. If it depends on where you live or what you’re doing, AI should ask first instead of giving you ten different scenarios. If you want more detail, you can always ask.
Honest answers, even when you disagree
Not every business idea is good. Not every diagnosis is correct. If there’s a problem with your idea, AI should say so and explain why. AI needs to touch grass and get in touch with reality sometimes.
But it can be wrong too. If you push back, it should check its answer, not cave and not dig in. New facts should change the answer. Pressure alone shouldn’t.
Your data stays yours
AI doesn’t need your life story to answer a question. We don’t want something you said last month shaping every answer you get today. And an agent doesn’t need access to your whole life to finish one task. You should decide what it can see, check what it did, and be able to start fresh.
The tests
Before any idea moves forward, it has to answer four questions. Does it leave people more capable, or just more dependent? Does it save real time, or only feel like it does? Does it keep people’s data and decisions in their hands? Would anyone miss it if it went away?