Two ways to use AI
Artifact: your last three AI prompts, audited as 'learn' or 'done'
1. The two modes
There are exactly two ways to use AI in your work, and the difference matters more than any prompt technique.
As your teacher. You bring a problem, the AI explains. You ask why, you ask what the tradeoffs are, you ask it to walk you through. The AI does explanation work; you do the writing.
As your hands. You bring a problem, the AI writes the solution. You read, you accept, you paste. The AI does the writing work; you do nothing.
Both are legitimate. They are appropriate at different times. The mistake almost everyone makes is failing to choose between them — letting the relationship drift into "hands" by default, because "hands" is faster on each individual task.
2. When each is right
Teacher mode is right when you're learning. Any time the goal includes "I want to be able to do this next time without help," teacher mode is the only mode. The friction of writing it yourself is the learning. Skip the friction, skip the learning.
Hands mode is right when you already know how. When you've done this exact thing a thousand times — boilerplate, scaffolding, formatting, regex — and the value is the time saved, not the thinking, let the AI write it. You already have the model. You're not skipping anything.
The trouble starts when you use hands mode on a thing you don't yet know how to do. Then the AI ships, you ship, and the gap in your knowledge stays exactly the same size — only now with confidence laundered through the green checkmark.
3. The cheap habit
Before each prompt, ask yourself one word: learn, or done?
If learn, ask the AI to explain or walk you through. Don't ask for code.
If done, ask the AI for the code. Don't ask for an explanation you don't need.
The deciding takes one second. The outcome over a year is the difference between someone who's compounding skill and someone who's compounding dependency.