A Field Guide
Go to Coding with AI

Working With AI

Jesal Mehta

Fifteen principles for treating AI as a collaborator - not just an autocomplete. Read them in order, or jump to whichever you need right now.

  1. 01 Working With AI Is Not Just Prompting
  2. 02 The Core Rule
  3. 03 Four Levels of Working With AI
  4. 04 Give AI a Task, Not Just a Topic
  5. 05 Context Changes the Answer
  6. 06 Your Own Knowledge Matters
  7. 07 Articulation Is a Force Multiplier
  8. 08 Ask the AI to Ask You Questions
  9. 09 Prompting Can Clarify Your Own Thinking
  10. 10 Control the Level of Abstraction
  11. 11 Give AI Material to Work With
  12. 12 Define What “Good” Means
  13. 13 Separate Generation From Evaluation
  14. 14 Iteration Is the Method
  15. 15 Do Not Confuse Confidence With Correctness
  16. 16 The Four Things You Bring to the Conversation

Good AI use depends on knowing what matters - or wisely using the conversation to find out.

Jesal Mehta