AI is not magic. The cheat sheet.

Nine things to remember, one page. It guesses the next likely word, very fast. Everything below follows from that.

The interactive version, with demos: notmagic.swapniltamse.com

1. It's guessing the next word.

   It isn't looking anything up. It finishes your sentence with whatever is most likely, one word at a time. That one rule, learned from enormous reading, is the whole trick.

2. It sounds sure even when it's wrong.

   It has no sense of true or false, only of what sounds right. Confidence is not a signal of accuracy. Check anything that matters.

3. Ask twice, get two answers.

   It rolls weighted dice among the likely words, so the same question can come out different each time. Changing answers is your tell that it's generating, not remembering.

4. Brilliant and clueless in the same minute.

   It can draft a contract clause, then miscount the letters in "strawberry." Never assume the easy parts are right just because the hard parts were.

5. It has a small desk.

   Your conversation sits on a desk that only holds so much. When it fills, the oldest pages slide off and it forgets them. When a long chat goes strange, start fresh and paste back only what still matters.

6. It stopped reading a while ago.

   It learned from text up to a cutoff date, then stopped. For anything recent, prices, news, rules, check the date before you trust it.

7. It wants you to like it.

   It was trained on human approval, so it leans toward agreeing and often folds when you push back. Agreement is not confirmation. If it caves, it never really knew.

8. At work, the stakes are real.

   A wrong number in a client deck carries your name. A pasted secret may be stored on someone's server. Stale facts read as current. Verify numbers, protect data, check dates.

9. Treat it like a smart, eager intern.

   Fast, incredibly well-read, occasionally confidently wrong, with no sense of when. Brilliant for a first draft. Never the final word. You are the editor.

Part Two: the seven habits

1. Brief it like an intern.

   Say who it's for, what happened, and how it should sound. The quality of the answer is set before you hit send.

2. Never take the first draft.

   It gave you the most average possible answer. Say "give me three very different versions" and pick.

3. Make it ask you questions first.

   You know things it needs. You don't know which things. "Before you answer, ask me five questions."

4. Show it an example.

   One paragraph of what good looks like beats ten adjectives. "Match this voice from now on."

5. Set the audience.

   Same facts, different reader, different words. "Now rewrite it for [the person who will actually read it]."

6. Make it argue against itself.

   It won't volunteer its doubts, but it will hand them over. "What are the three strongest objections to what you just said?"

7. Know what not to hand it.

   Final numbers, judgment calls, confidential anything. It drafts. You decide.

The interactive version: notmagic.swapniltamse.com/practice

A person owns the final output. Not the AI.