Ben Sloot

There’s a growing temptation in the workplace to offload the heavy lifting of thinking directly onto AI tools. I saw this play out firsthand during a recent professional education course.

Instructors would pose a question or assignment, and almost immediately, my peers fed the prompt straight into ChatGPT. Seconds later—boom—a neatly packaged, grammatically correct, perfectly bland response appeared. And then another. And another.

Here’s the problem: it was all the same. Slight variations on a theme, but no originality, no personal voice.

Meanwhile, a few of us took a different approach. We sat with the question for a while. Sketched some messy notes. Doodled an outline. Let the ideas bounce around in our own heads first. Then we brought LLMs into the process—not to create the idea, but to help us shape it, tighten it, and refine the language.

The result? Unique answers. Personal perspectives. Work that actually sounded like the human being behind it.

Three Hard Truths About AI and Human Work

1. Don’t Skip the Hard Part—Thinking.

AI is a phenomenal tool for refinement, but it’s a terrible substitute for original thought. If you start with the machine, you’ll always get machine-like answers.

Your brain still needs to do the heavy lifting. Get the raw ideas down first—ugly, incomplete, and unpolished if necessary. Then let AI help smooth the edges.

2. Over-Reliance on AI Will Erode Creativity.

Like any muscle, if you stop using your creative faculties, they’ll atrophy. Creativity doesn’t emerge from perfect prompts—it comes from wrestling with ideas, sitting in ambiguity, and making connections AI can’t.

Let the machine assist, but don’t hand over the creative reins.

3. Don’t Be Replaceable. Don’t Let the Machines Win.

If your entire workflow consists of copy-pasting prompts and accepting the first response, you’re training yourself to be replaceable.

The future belongs to people who can combine human creativity with AI efficiency—not people who outsource their thinking entirely.

Where This Shows Up

I’ve sat in too many meetings where people show up with beautifully formatted slides… and absolutely no original thought behind them. The “solution” looks great on paper, but it’s hollow—regurgitated templates with no consideration for the actual people, teams, or missions involved.

Real work isn’t about producing content faster—it’s about producing content that matters. It’s about taking the time to wrestle with hard decisions, to consider second- and third-order effects, and to inject your own values and perspective into the work.

So whether you’re briefing a general officer or collaborating with your team, remember this: the people in the room aren’t looking for the perfect AI-polished slide. They’re looking for someone with the courage to think, decide, and stand behind their own ideas.

Start with the human draft. That’s where real leadership begins.