Novistopheles post2 ai. # One Big Box of Chat

This article, like all the others, is targeted to using Claude AI. In my last article, I introduced the scaffold with its five ways for thinking about AI. Today, we start with modality one: General Chat.

Most people’s first experience with AI is a chat window. You type a question. It answers. Simple.

And that simplicity is remarkable and deceptive. Because general chat appears to do anything, it enforces little to no structure at all. And so most users of ChatGPT, simply open a chat and have at it.

Claude AI, also offers a powerful general chat as well.

So what’s the problem?

  • Most people use general chat to seek answers.

This behavior is so prevalent, that marketers have now coined the term AEO - or Answer Engine Optimization. What’s more, this behavior is so common, the big AI companies like OpenAI and Google have tuned their AI’s to provide fast answers (according to Forte Labs). The theory is the AI that looks the smartest, and returns an answer the fastest wins the user race. Heck here are three real “prompts” searches from my own use history:

  • “What is solo leveling? I think it’s a TV show? What’s it about?"
  • “What is a money map? Someone ran one for me. They needed my full birth name, birthday, location and time. What is that all about?"
  • “How old is 4,000 weeks?"

For many people, AI has become their search replacement. And why not? It came out in the Google Antitrust case (which they unbelievably won), that Google had intentionally worsened search results because their marketshare had become so dominant, there was no more search traffic to win. So to grow their revenue? They made people search more than once to get the same quality of answers they used to get in a single search. This process of making a service intentionally worse is known as enshittification. (enshittification was coined by the Canadian-British writer and activist Cory Doctorow in late 2022).

What does this have to do with general Chat?

The more the LLM knows about you, the better it can answer your questions. This is both cool, and a little creepy. The cool part is it could match my level of knowledge and curiosity and I didn’t have to do much. And every single question I asked led to a long conversation.

That’s the power of General Chat. It will answer your question, but often, it is primed to want to keep your talking. They are friendly like that.

It learns you

The default mode of Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok all share memory across your conversations. Over time, the AI builds a picture of:

  • How you think
  • What you care about
  • How you express yourself
  • What you’re interested in

However, there can be a problem with the AI learning all about you… I call it “domain bleed”, when knowledge from one chat bleeds into another chat. This only becomes a problem if you are trying to keep conversations isolated.

Here’s a fun prompt if you haven’t done it already:


Analyze our entire conversation history and create a comprehensive 'User Persona' of me. Please break it down into the following sections:  

1. **Core Identity & Roles:** How do you categorize my professional and personal roles?  
    
2. **Communication Style:** What are the hallmarks of how I speak, my tone, and my level of technical depth?  
    
3. **Knowledge Domains:** What subjects do I return to most often, and what is my assumed expertise level in them?  
    
4. **Values & Priorities:** Based on my questions and corrections, what seems to matter most to me in an interaction?  
    
5. **Cognitive Patterns:** Do I tend toward 'big picture' visionary thinking, granular technical execution, or a specific problem-solving framework?  
    
Please be candid and objective. Use specific themes you've observed rather than generalities."

Some experts guess that 85% to 95% of people use AI just like this. As a tool to provide a result. My goal here is to open you up to the possibility AI can not only work for, but also work with you. But to do that, you will need to break the AI out of it’s default “answer at all costs and sound really smart mode.”

You can do this, and you can start right now with any LLM. Try this prompt:

Please have a conversation with me. Take turns interacting with me. Do not send me 11 words for every one I send you, or five paragraphs for everyone of mine. Do not spam walls of text at me.  If you need to give me context, give me a concise list, then walk me through it one item at a time, but give me a chance to respond to each idea or step before you rush past and bury me in text.

You might give that a go and see how your conversations with General Chat change.

Until next time.

Scott