Think of AI language models as AI language calculators. They might be able to write grammatically correctly, but because they follow rules that are programmed, they can’t actually think. They don’t know what they are doing. They don’t have context. They don’t have input unless you put it in. They don’t know what to do with the output. You have to do that.

To use AI language models effectively, we have to become experts in how to put in the right stuff to get the right result that we can actually use. If I don’t know basic math, then I can’t use a calculator. If I don’t know basic language, then I can’t use an AI language model either. 

These tools can’t write *for* you. They can only write *with* you. You still have to know why you are writing, who you are writing for, and what you want to have happen as a result of the writing. You still have to make choices about purpose and audience and context. The AI can show you a million different permutations of the exact same prompt, but you still have to pick the one that will work best.

So how are you going to do that?

Before cell phones and the internet the means of sending a message were limited. Anytime in the late 19th century or earlier, there were basically two ways to send a message: find the person and talk to them or send a letter or a note or a calling card (ok, there were choices, but we don’t have to worry about most of those mechanisms any more). Then the phone was invented, and now you could actually hear the person’s voice even when you weren’t in the same space with them. The phone was a channel for communication between talking to them in person and sending a written message. And it was revolutionary. 

But here in the 21st century, our means of communication have proliferated. Of course, you can still talk to people in person (if you want). And you can call them (that is a function the device we call a “phone” still has). But you can also FaceTime (aka video call), text, post/chat/DM on any one of the ever-multiplying social media platforms, instant message through Slack or Google Chat (or those same social media platforms), email, or send a voice message, video message, meme, gif, or any other communication object through any of these platforms. 

The ways to communicate are infinite. 

So how do we make choices about which ones to use when?

I don’t think I am great at giving or receiving feedback. Yet. But I do know what we *should* do. And I know why we should do these things. I hope that by sharing them with you, you can practice these skills and keep working to develop the trust in others and trust in yourself that giving and receiving good feedback requires.

I recently read Erica Dhawan’s book Digital Body Language, which has such great insights about how people are evaluating trust based on the signals we send when we communicate. Her point in the book is that trust is built by more than the language we read: the combination of all our choices creates a signal for the audience. What she emphasizes is that we read the contextual signals of written communication much like we read body language during a face-to-face conversation. 

We know what you mean when you say “We’re going to have to take another look at this” because we can hear your voice, see your face, read your posture. All those things add up to tone, the emotions we ascribe to a bit of communication. And, Dhawan suggests–despite our long-held belief that writing doesn’t have a voice or a face or posture, that writing doesn’t have tone in the way that we know speaking does–it turns out that writing does have non-verbal signals that we can interpret as positive or negative, enthusiastic or uninterested, overwhelmed or bored. And we need to be aware of those signals so that we can make choices about the signals we send.