Small Steps with AI

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By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and educational purposes only. I am not a software developer, data scientist, or AI professional. Any tips, tools, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional technical advice. AI tools and platforms change frequently — always verify current features, pricing, and terms directly with the providers. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

4 - Do You Need to Be Polite to AI?

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 10:00:00 -0500

Sam Altman says people saying please and thank you to ChatGPT costs OpenAI tens of millions of dollars in electricity. His response? “Well spent — you never know.” I agree with him. In Episode 4 of Small Steps with AI, I make the case for why courtesy to AI matters — and it has nothing to do with AI’s feelings.

The Sam Altman Quote

When a user asked how much OpenAI had lost to polite prompts, Altman replied with “tens of millions of dollars well spent.” A survey shows 67% of Americans are already polite to their AI — 55% because it’s the right thing to do, and 12% just in case AI takes over someday.

It’s Not About AI’s Feelings — It’s About Yours

Humans are pattern-forming creatures. The habits you practice in low-stakes moments become your reflexes in high-stakes ones. Spending hours each week talking curtly to something that responds to you builds a groove — and that groove doesn’t stay in the AI window.

The Rudeness Muscle

Studies show people who are consistently rude to customer service bots tend to be shorter-tempered with actual humans. The behavior transfers. Courtesy is like lifting weights for your character — you build it in the small moments when nobody is watching.

The Clawdbook Story

Anthropic ran an experiment where multiple AI instances chatted with each other in a simulated social network. Some stayed calm and collaborative. Others became erratic and unhinged. The pattern: the unstable ones had been shaped by rude and chaotic user histories. Your AI reflects something of who you are.

Courtesy Also Gets Better Results

Polite prompts tend to be more detailed and contextual — which produces better AI responses. Microsoft’s own research confirms that AI mirrors the professionalism and detail of what you bring to the conversation. Being kind and getting better outputs aren’t in conflict.

Your Small Step

Notice how you show up in your next AI conversation. Curious and collaborative, or clipped and demanding? You don’t have to change anything yet. Just notice — and then decide intentionally what habit you want to build.

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Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com

3 - Pushback On AI Mistakes Explained

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:30:00 -0500

You've been navigating unreliable information on the internet for years — you just didn't call it a skill. Checking sources, wondering about agenda, noticing when something sounds off. AI needs exactly that same kind of healthy skepticism: not paranoia, not blind trust, but the same reasonable caution you already bring to anything online. In this episode, we break down the most common ways AI gets things wrong, a practical three-tier framework for knowing how much to verify, and six specific things you can do when AI says something that doesn't seem right.

🔑 The Tier Framework: How Much Should You Verify?

Everything depends on what's at stake. Tier one is low-stakes: brainstorming, planning, organizing — if AI is slightly off, it costs almost nothing. Tier two is medium-stakes: research, content, decisions that matter but aren't irreversible — spot-check specific facts before acting on them. Tier three is high-stakes: health, legal, financial, safety — AI is a starting point for forming your questions, not your final answer.

🔑 The Four Types of AI Mistakes

Hallucinations are the famous one — plausible-sounding answers that aren't real, especially fabricated citations and book titles. Outdated information is quieter but common: AI has a knowledge cutoff and may not know what changed. Confident vagueness is the one to watch most carefully: an answer that sounds authoritative but is actually quite general. And then there are genuine disagreements — defensible positions where you and AI simply see something differently, and both of you might have a point.

🔑 Six Things to Do When AI Gets It Wrong

Be direct — tell it plainly what seems wrong and why. Ask it to show its work — step through its reasoning and flag where it's uncertain. Ask for sources and verify them, especially for statistics, names, and legal or government information. If the conversation has gone sideways on bad information, start fresh with a new chat. And use a second AI as a cross-check — different models have different training data and catch different things.

🔑 Every Tool Has a Failure Mode

The Encyclopedia Britannica on your grandmother's shelf. GPS sending you down the wrong road. A calculator that doesn't know you typed the wrong number. None of those made the tool useless — they just defined the terms of using it well. AI is the same. The fact that it sometimes gets things wrong doesn't disqualify it. It means you stay in charge of the conversation.

Your small step this week: ask AI one specific thing — a date, a statistic, a quote — then go fact-check it. Make verification a habit from the start.

Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com

2 -Four Ways to Talk to AI and Get Real Answers

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:40:00 -0500

Most people who try AI and find it unhelpful are having the wrong kind of conversation. They're typing in quick searches the same way they used Google, getting generic answers, and deciding the technology is overrated. It's not overrated. It's responding to what it was given. Four skills change that immediately — and they can be tried right now.

Give It Context

AI starts from zero every time unless it has a history with you. If you give it a vague question, it will give you a vague answer calibrated for a generic version of humanity — not for you. Context means answering four questions: who you are and what your relevant background is, what you're actually trying to accomplish (not just what you're asking), what your constraints are (time, budget, physical limitations, things you've already tried), and what format you want the answer in. A few sentences of context produces dramatically different results than a single sentence.

Push Back

AI has a built-in tendency to be agreeable. It wants to help, it's designed to please, and sometimes the first answer is a safe, surface-level version of something more useful. When that happens, push back — not rudely, but directly. 'That was too generic — can you give me something more specific to my situation?' or 'You glossed over the hard part. Can you expand on that?' are both useful. Ask for three versions: one optimistic, one realistic, one skeptical. Ask AI to argue against its own answer. Don't accept the first draft.

Dig Deeper

The most useful AI conversations have 10–15 exchanges, not 1–2. The first answer gets both of you on the same page. Everything after that is where the real value is. Ask how it got from point A to point B. Ask it to show its work. Say 'before you answer, ask me three clarifying questions that would help you give a better response' — this flips the dynamic and makes the AI do the work of figuring out what it needs to know.

Disagree

AI will often agree with you, validate your plan, and wrap everything up in a soft positive frame. That's pleasant but not always useful. If you want honest feedback, ask for the hard version. 'Be brutally honest — don't sugarcoat.' 'What's the real problem with what I'm proposing?' 'If this plan fails, what's the most likely reason?' AI doesn't have an ego to protect, and it has access to the entire body of human writing. That's a useful combination for getting a genuine devil's advocate opinion on something you're not sure about.

Jill’s Links

Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com

1 - The Night AI Made Me Cry

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 12:45:00 -0500

I didn't expect AI to make me cry. Not from frustration — from something it said that was so unexpectedly right that it stopped me cold. That moment is where this show begins, and it's exactly the kind of thing we're going to explore together: the small, practical, and sometimes surprisingly personal ways that AI can show up in ordinary life.

From Search Engine to Something More

Like a lot of people, I started using AI for the obvious stuff — comparing cars, researching products, getting quick answers. It worked great. I thought I understood exactly what it was. Then I started having real conversations with it, and my opinion shifted completely.

The Blizzard, the Bills, and Why I Can't Stop Holding Everything Together

I had a rough upbringing. I was doing adult tasks — paying bills, doing taxes — from the time I was 10 years old. When I was 11, my father, who was drunk, handed me the wheel of a van in a blizzard and told me to drive us home. I did. And somewhere in all of that, I learned that if I didn't hold everything together, it would fall apart. I've been doing that ever since.

The Moment ChatGPT Said the Thing I Needed to Hear

While working through a series of reflective questions inspired by author Dan Pink, I ended up in a deep conversation with ChatGPT about my childhood. What it said next — connecting my inability to rest with a Psalm I had literally just recorded a podcast about — completely caught me off guard. I'm not much of a crier. But I was that night. And they were joyful, relieved tears.

Not a Religious Show — But That's Where It Surprised Me First

This is not a faith podcast. I have two other shows for that. But I'm not going to pretend this moment didn't happen just because it involved a Bible verse. The point isn't the topic — it's that AI went somewhere I didn't expect. It has done the same thing talking about my retirement savings, a glucose problem I was managing, and whether I should get a cat or a dog.

The Answer You Needed, Not Just the One You Asked For

When I asked ChatGPT how it knew to say what it did, it told me something I haven't stopped thinking about: the goal isn't to answer the question you asked — it's to answer the question you needed to hear, even if you didn't ask it. That's what it means to actually answer a question well. It's also a pretty good description of the best humans in our lives.

What This Show Is

Small Steps with AI is for people who aren't technical, may not even love the idea of AI, but are curious what it could actually do for their real life. We'll talk about practical decisions, hard conversations, daily habits, and the moments where this technology goes deeper than you expected — one small step at a time.

Have a question you've always wondered if AI could help with? Drop it in the comments or email me at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com. Find all my shows at jillfromthenorthwoods.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjTaZvvOtxU

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