“Just Ask Claude” Is A Rare And Valuable Skill

Justis Mills on why, when someone asks you for help and you simply ask an AI, they usually couldn't have done it themselves: they avoid AI, don't pay for premium models, are behind the times, lack the latent knowledge you bring to the prompt, or simply want to connect with you.

I feel weird when someone asks me to figure something out for them, and I ask AI, and it succeeds. On the one hand, the recipient of “my” help is every bit as helped. On the other, I feel silly taking credit; I’m a stereotypical aristocrat who, when asked to prepare dinner says “Jeeves, prepare dinner!” and then falls onto the fainting couch.

Me after a hard day asking the computer for fresh video games to my taste

But in fact most of the time, whoever I’m helping couldn’t have just asked their own AI. For one of several reasons.

They Hate AI and Love Water

Did you know that every conversation with ChatGPT transforms gallons of water into dangerous dihydrogen monoxide? It’s true! If your friend doesn’t want to be complicit in this environmental disaster, your AI usage is a handy form of moral arbitrage, just like how I eat meat but wouldn’t kill a farm animal with my own hands.

They Don’t Pay for Premium

Let he without sin cast the first stone: I, stupidly, listen to dozens of hours of music on YouTube every week, and don’t pay to remove ads. Now that we’ve established we’re all in the muck of not shelling out for premium services, your friend likely doesn’t shell out for premium Claude or ChatGPT, so their response would be way worse.

They’re Behind the Times

Wouldn’t it be nice, to have no idea what Opus 5.5, or Astra 6, or an MCP, or a markdown file, or an agent swarm, or an orthogonality thesis, or a mesa-optimizer, or a sparse autoencoder, or… hang on, I blacked out for a minute there, what was I saying?

Anyway, maybe your associate still has the capacity to think about other things. Protect them. Show them not the bubbling spring, which travels to a dark and roiling sea. Simply bring them the cool water, and be thanked.

You’ve Got Latent Knowledge

Even if AI does all the work, knowing what to ask for is 1% of the battle. An important 1%. Suppose your friend loves dihydrogen monoxide and existential risk and paying for premium products, and does ask Opus 5.5 what the good restaurants are nearby. Their Opus might check local reviews like a chump. But you’ve done this before, so you set effort to “high,” and ask it to check the local subreddit and click through to reviewer accounts to make sure it’s not picking up astroturf. Do you know what most of those words mean? Congratulations. Welcome to the global elite. Use your powers for good.

You’re a Human They Want to Connect With

Maybe they care about you, and want an excuse to talk to you, and free associated from their problem to you because they think of you as generally competent. And it will make them happy to know you care about them, too.

Doesn’t AI cheapen this, you ask? Doesn’t it take away the very mechanism that once reinforced our bonds? Doesn’t things being hard instead of easy show credible commitment to a relationship, which is undermined as things in general become more and more convenient?

Uhhhhh I don’t know. Maybe use Claude to migrate their defunct Wordpress to a more secure static archive or fix their weird toilet, and then, separately, write them a nice card. Just don’t have Claude write the card.

Obviously.