{"id":23165,"date":"2025-09-24T10:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=23165"},"modified":"2025-09-24T10:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:15:11","slug":"show-your-work-ai-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/24\/show-your-work-ai-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Show your work, AI edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Microsoft VP Aparna Chennapragada, who recruited me to Microsoft after I reported to her at Google, recently wrote a thoughtful piece<\/a> about building trust through transparency. Specifically around AI agents, we want less of this…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

…and more of this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I agree completely. Having some thoughtful back-and-forth makes me feel better understood & therefore more confident in my assistant’s work.

And feel<\/em> here is a big deal. As Maya Angelou said, “People won’t remember what you said, or even what you did, but they’ll remember how you made them *feel*. Microsoft AI leader (and previously DeepMind cofounder) Mustafa Suleyman<\/a> totally gets this.

Conversely, I just saw a founder advertising his product as “visual storytelling on autopilot.” I get the intent, but I find the phrasing oxymoronic: would any worthwhile “story” be generated by autopilot? Yuck.

When apps try to do too much with my sparse input, seeing the results makes me feel like Neven Mrgan did<\/a> upon receiving AI-generated slop from a friend: “I was repelled, as if digital anthrax<\/strong> had poured out of the app.” I don’t even want to read<\/em> such content, much less share it, much less be judged on it.

So yeah, apps: ditch autopilot & instead take the time to show interest & ask good questions. “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”\u2014and a little thoughtfulness up front will save me time while increasing my pride of ownership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft VP Aparna Chennapragada, who recruited me to Microsoft after I reported to her at Google, recently wrote a thoughtful piece about building trust through transparency. Specifically around AI agents, we want less of this… …and more of this: I agree completely. Having some thoughtful back-and-forth makes me feel better understood & therefore more confident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[66],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23168,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23165\/revisions\/23168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}