DOP 372: Using AI Every Day Doesn't Make You Good at It

Episode 372

Show Notes

#372: Your company bought everyone a ChatGPT or Claude license. Problem solved, right? A few people never touch it. Most use it like a drive-through window – type a question, grab the answer, leave. And the ones using it all day for emails assume that makes them good at it.

But think about it. Your kid had to pass a written test before driving the car. Your team got the keys and a login.

In this episode, we speak with Chris Daigle, founder and CEO of ChiefAIOfficer.com, about what actually turns daily AI use into real skill.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does using AI every day make you good at it?

Not on its own, according to Chris Daigle on DevOps Paradox episode 372. He says most executives overestimate their prowess and confuse frequency of use with proficiency. Using AI all day for emails or document summaries does not mean getting the most out of the model. He compares handing out licenses without training to letting someone drive before taking the written test. Without training, he argues, people’s skill grows by accident rather than by design.

Where should a mid-sized company start its first AI pilot?

Chris Daigle recommends on DevOps Paradox episode 372 that lower middle market companies start in finance. The aim is to support people rather than replace them, for example by chasing up receipts. His general rule is to pilot to win: pick a small task that someone dislikes and is not good at, such as copying data between spreadsheets many times a day. Morale rises because people hated that work anyway.

What is the 10-80-10 workflow for working with AI?

Darin Pope describes 10-80-10 on DevOps Paradox episode 372 as his own way of working with AI. First he gets clear on the plan, then he lets the AI do the work, and at the end he comes back to check the result. Guest Chris Daigle says his company uses the same phrase, but warns that a junior developer may not know enough to plan. Viktor Farcic replies that juniors have never been able to close that gap faster.

Are AI tokens too expensive for businesses?

Viktor Farcic argues on DevOps Paradox episode 372 that complaints about token costs are exaggerated. If AI delivers even 20% of a person’s value, he says, that probably already covers more tokens than the person costs, and he uses 1,000 dollars a month as his example. Guest Chris Daigle agrees when the output is there but says experimenting wastes money. Once a use case is proven, he says, an agent costing 1,000 dollars a month compares easily with an employee costing five thousand.

Does an AI assistant's memory lock you into your employer?

Viktor Farcic worries on DevOps Paradox episode 372 that it might. As Claude learns how he likes to work, leaving a company or switching to GPT could mean starting from scratch. Guest Chris Daigle replies that your skill with AI goes with you, even though what you produce belongs to the company. He suggests a scheduled monthly task that has the model update a context document, a kind of work diary you keep when you leave.

What does a chief AI officer do?

Chris Daigle defines a chief AI officer on DevOps Paradox episode 372 as a non-technical business professional who understands both business and the generative AI landscape and can translate between them. He credits the idea to Peter Diamandis, speaking on Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory podcast in March 2023. Chris thinks the best candidate is often the COO or operations lead. Darin Pope compares the title to the chief digital officer roles of the early 2010s, which rarely lasted.

What is the DevOps Paradox podcast?

DevOps Paradox is a weekly podcast co-hosted by Darin Pope and Viktor Farcic, covering DevOps, platform engineering, and modern software delivery. In episode 372, Using AI Every Day Doesn’t Make You Good at It, guest Chris Daigle of chiefaiofficer.com explains why using AI often is different from using it well. He also covers where small and mid-sized companies should start with AI and what a chief AI officer does. Every episode page carries audio, video, and a full transcript.

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Guests

Chris Daigle

Chris Daigle

Hosts

Darin Pope

Darin Pope

Viktor Farcic

Viktor Farcic

Viktor Farcic is a member of the Google Developer Experts and Docker Captains groups, and published author.

His big passions are DevOps, Containers, Kubernetes, Microservices, Continuous Integration, Delivery and Deployment (CI/CD) and Test-Driven Development (TDD).

He often speaks at community gatherings and conferences.

He has published DevOps Paradox and Test-Driven Java Development.

His random thoughts and tutorials can be found in his blog The DevOps Toolkit.