AI Usage Typology – Fisherman
Take this with a grain of salt. It comes from my own hands-on experience using AI at work at an enterprise level. I find the Centaur vs. Cyborg debate interesting because prompting is so nuanced, and which side you lean toward depends on how you learn and work best.
When I started using AI more and more, I leaned Centaur. I enjoy writing, and there's nothing like writing a long, detailed, context-rich prompt, hitting enter, walking away to make a coffee, and coming back to something pretty close to what I expected. I love that, but I also love ducking into a phone booth or going for a walk with my dog and just rambling into my phone. A total brain dump. It doesn't matter if there are 1-2 minute pauses where I think I have nothing left to say, because there's always more. I give it every bit of context I can think of so all my ideas make it in. That's how I start most of my projects, and it works wonders.
On the flip side, when the task gets narrower and I'm building more complex systems or dashboards, or getting picky about UX details, the Cyborg comes out. Giving surgical directions has its own benefits. Some of my most creative ideas come from this process, because the pressure and narrow scope force them out. The downside is I go down rabbit holes, building designs and features nobody needs just for the wow factor.
So what's the goal of a Centaur or a Cyborg? Neither one is real, so when I look at my own habits and ways of working, I land somewhere else.
Why I'm a Fisherman
AI at work reminds me a lot of fishing. The goal is clear: catch fish, mission complete. As someone who uses AI at work every day, my goal is just as clear: ideate, create, iterate (ideally not too much), implement, and make an impact.
Depending on the project and its scope, I almost always cast an extremely wide net at the start, like a commercial fisherman. That's me rambling into my phone or writing a novel to kick things off, throwing out a massive net of context and sending the AI after my fish.
Most fishermen aren't commercial, though. They fish for fun, sitting on a dock and making a single cast for one specific fish. You narrow the cast, go after something particular, and when you finally land it, there's nothing like it. Same feeling as entering a prompt and getting exactly what you were after.
There's no right or wrong answer here. I'm just trying to shift the conversation toward the Fisherman. :)