Disclaimer: This was written by a human, no AI was used in this process :)
The type of AI user you are can vary, just like people. I recently stumbled upon the debate of Centaur v Cyborg and it inspired me to look in the mirror and ask the question to myself, am I a Centaur or a Cyborg? I pondered on this question for a while and came to the conclusion… I am a Fisherman… I will explain.
Feel free to take this entry with a grain of sale, it is through my own practical experience using AI at Work at an enterprise level. I believe the debate of Centaur v Cyborg is particularly intriguing because the practices of prompt engineering are so nuanced and depending on the user and how that user learns and works best will entirely depend which side you lean towards.
As I begun using AI more and more, my ways of working and the type of user I was certainly leaned to being a Centaur. I enjoy writing, and there is nothing like writing a long context-rich bulleted and detailed prompt, hitting enter, walking away, making a coffee and coming back to a fairly close result to what I was expecting. Just as much as I enjoy hitting that enter button and walking away, I also love hopping into a phone booth, closing the door somewhere, going for a walk with my dog… and absolutely rambling into my phone. I am talking a total brain dump of epic proportions, doesn’t even matter if there is 1-2 minute pauses of nothing left to say… there always is! I provide all the context I can think of, to ensure I encapsulate all of my ideas. In fact, this is often how I begin most of my projects and it works wonders.
Vice Versa, through my AI journey when my task gets more narrow and I am building out more complex systems, dashboards or even getting meticulous about UX details, the Cyborg arises. Making surgical directions also has its benefits, I tend to find my most creative ideas come out of this process. The pressure and narrow scope creates idea, this does have its downsides, I find myself going down unnecessary rabbit holes implementing designs and unnecessary functionalities purely for the woah factor.
With all that that being said, what is the goal of a Centaur or a Cyborg? Well, realistically speaking, neither of them are real and therefore I reflect on my own AI practices, techniques and ways of working and I eventually get to:
Why I am a Fisherman?
AI at work reminds me alot of fishing, the goal is clear → catch fish = success/mission complete. As a real, daily user of AI at work, the goal is clear → ideate, create, iterate (ideally not alot), implement and make impact = success/mission complete.
Depending on the project, scope of the objective I tend to always cast an extremely wide net at the beginning of the project, similar to a commercial Fisherman. Figuratively speaking, this is me blabbering into my phone or writing out a novel to start a project: casting out a massive net of context, directing the AI to get my fish.
Most Fisherman aren’t commercial though, they fish for fun, sitting on a dock and throwing out a single cast for one specific fish. Narrowing that cast, seeking a unique fish, going on a hunt, getting exactly what you are looking for → there is nothing like catching that fish, entering that prompt and getting exactly what you are looking for.
There is no right or wrong answer here, I write this to shift the conversation towards Fisherman :)
