When AI Asks the Questions
Lately, I’ve been thinking differently about how I use AI.
At first, like many people, I used it for answers, ideas, drafts, and revisions. It was fast, helpful, and surprisingly good. But after a while, something didn’t feel quite right. The more I relied on AI to give me answers, the less I felt like I was actually working through my own thinking. I was getting results, but I wasn’t always certain about the process or the value behind outputs.
So I tried something different. Instead of asking AI to give me answers, I started building a simple chatbot that asks me questions. I flipped the role.
Now, when I’m working through a goal, a task, or a decision, my custom chatbot doesn’t jump to solutions first. It slows me down a little and pushes me to clarify what I’m trying to do. It asks what I’ve already considered, what constraints matter, and what I might be overlooking. It helps me stay in the thinking process instead of skipping past it.
Why This Matters to Me
There is a lot of interest right now in AI that can act on our behalf. I understand why that’s appealing, and it makes sense in some situations. But I’m not ready to fully embrace that agentic approach in all of my work.
I want to wrestle with ideas, sort through decisions, and understand the “why” behind what I’m doing. For me, that’s where the real learning happens. Maybe that’s the educator in me.
Using AI as a thought partner helps me do that. It doesn’t take over. It just keeps me thinking. Instead of using AI to think for me, I’m using it to help me think more intentionally.
This shift also connects to ideas we explore in our JoltEDU course, AI 101: The Fundamentals of Generative Technology. One of the goals of that course is to help educators move past the surface level of AI and really understand what it is, how it works, and what it means for teaching and learning.
Doesn’t That Take More Time?
I’ll be honest, this way of working isn’t faster. It takes more time to respond to questions than to accept a ready-made answer. It asks more of me.
The difference isn’t just the output. It’s the outcome.
I understand my own ideas more clearly. I feel more confident in the decisions I make. And the work feels like it’s actually mine because I’ve thought more deeply about it along the way.
That is important to me, because using AI well is not just about what it can do. It is also about how we choose to use it, and how we help our learners choose to use it.
For me, this is one small way to use AI differently… so the minutes I spend thinking really matter.