Category: Collaboration

AI and YOUR Creative Voice from Walter Reid

People keep asking me the same thing about AI and creativity. Can you use AI and still sound like yourself?

One would think that given my proximity to AI I would seem like a natural cheerleader for it in all things. Truthfully, my relationship is a bit more nuanced than that. Even if I also consider it transformative in many ways.

But on the creative side, especially, I do have some thoughts on healthy working relationships when collaboratively working with AI and, yet still, maintaining your own unique voice and “lived in” creative spark.

So, here is solid advice when people are looking for a new way to “collaborate with AI on an idea”.

Take any idea you want to explore, and share them with AI.

Then… and this is the important part… you cannot use any of the result AI gives you.

You have to think of something completely different. No ideas on that list. No creative writing, motto, tag line, slogan, or whatever.

My rationale goes: Because AI was trained on the corpus of human writing, if you take something that AI wrote, you’re basically accepting the same content that AI would suggest to anyone else who asked for the same thing.

So unless you want to sound like 70% of everyone, don’t use AI for initial ideas or it’ll lock you into one of them and you’ll second guess your own skills.

So treat AI as a deliberate bad first draft and you’ll become a stronger person because of it.

#BeingCreative #HealthyAI #AI #FutureOfWork #DesignedToBeUnderstood

Prompting for Partnership: Our Journey into Intent, Pedagogy and the Emotional Contract

Good prompts aren’t just instructions—they’re specifications of intent, pedagogy, and the emotional contract.


I’ve been thinking about what separates mediocre AI interactions from transformative ones. It comes down to how we prompt.

“Intent” isn’t just what you want… it’s why and how.
“Pedagogy” is teaching the AI your approach.
“Emotional contract” defines the relationship.

Let’s break it down:
❌ “Write a product update”
✅ “Write a product update that reassures customers about our pivot while building excitement for what’s next.”
❌ “Analyze this data”
✅ “Analyze this data looking for outliers first, then patterns. Show me what contradicts our assumptions, not just what confirms them.”
❌ “Give me feedback”
✅ “Challenge my thinking here—I need a skeptical business partner, not a yes-person.”

The leaders who’ll thrive with AI won’t just issue commands—they’ll collaborate with it.


So… how are you prompting for partnership these days? Read more on my site or any of the site you can find my work

🌐 Official Site: walterreid.com – Walter Reid’s full archive and portfolio

📰 Substack: designedtobeunderstood.substack.com – long-form essays on AI and trust

🪶 Medium: @walterareid – cross-posted reflections and experiments

💬 Reddit Communities:

r/UnderstoodAI – Philosophical & practical AI alignment

r/AIPlaybook – Tactical frameworks & prompt design tools

r/BeUnderstood – AI guidance & human-AI communication

r/AdvancedLLM – CrewAI, LangChain, and agentic workflows

r/PromptPlaybook – Advanced prompting & context control

It’s Important to Frame Problems, Define Purpose, and Guide Intelligence with Intent in the Age of AI

A few years ago, “automation” meant streamlining routine tasks.
Today, AI agents can look at a solution, analyze user data, and outperform 70% of us—on their first try.

What happens when execution becomes effortless?

We’re entering a new era where the work itself is no longer our differentiator.
The real value now lies in the importance of how we frame problems, define purpose, and guide intelligence with intent.

This isn’t the end of human contribution. It’s the evolution of collaboration.

I saw this shift firsthand recently when a team used an AI agent to build a product prototype in a single afternoon.
The real discussion afterward wasn’t “How did it do that?”
It was “Are we solving the right problem?”
That’s where human insight still reigns.

AI can generate the what.
We must master the why.

Here’s what that means for every modern professional:

  • The problem finders will outpace the problem solvers.
  • The storytellers will lead the strategists.
  • The ethical gatekeepers will shape the future we actually want to live in.

Our worth is shifting—from producing artifacts to crafting meaning.

Because in a world where anything can be generated, purpose becomes our final competitive edge.

So let me ask an honest question —
👉 How are you evolving your role in the age of intelligent collaboration?

Read more on this site OR at the many places I post essays and article on AI and the human spark that makes outcomes better

💬 Reddit Communities: