Generative AI: Practical Strategies for Thinkydoers

CareersTech and Tools

Mar 4

Written By Sara Lobkovich

AI is transforming the way we work—but how can Thinkydoers use generative AI responsively and productively—as a tool, not a time-suck?

In part two of our conversation with AI ethicist and strategist Dvorah Graeser, we get practical about leveraging AI tools, particularly for deep specialists and strategic thinkers. Building on our discussion of ethics and implications from Episode 38, Dvorah shares specific ways to move from anxiety to agency with AI while maintaining your ethics and humanity.

Learn how to use AI tools to organize your thoughts, improve communication with different audiences, and enhance your work as a specialist, all while preserving what makes us uniquely human.

Episode Highlights:

How AI can help specialists move from anxiety to agency and practical ways to embrace AI tools with confidence
Using AI to organize complex ideas and turn scattered thoughts into structured outlines
The power of AI iteration and dialogue to refine thinking, decision-making, and communication
Fact-checking and avoiding AI hallucinations with tools like Perplexity AI and multi-tool validation
Enhancing communication for deep specialists by adapting messaging for different audiences, including neurodivergent thinkers and general business professionals
Leveraging AI for buyer personas and using marketing strategies to improve AI-generated content and audience targeting
AI as an assistive tool for neurodivergence and how it supports executive functioning challenges and workflow efficiency
Emotional processing and AI as a tool for self-reflection while recognizing its limitations in mental health support
First steps to overcoming AI anxiety and why understanding your emotional response to AI is crucial before integrating it into your workflow
Resources and further learning, including Dvorah’s free PDF on emotions in AI and an invitation to submit questions for future discussions

Key Concepts Explored:

AI for Organization & Creativity
- How AI helps specialists structure ideas and overcome creative overwhelm
- The role of AI in iterative thinking and refining communication
- AI’s effectiveness in summarizing, outlining, and organizing complex information
AI Accuracy & Fact-Checking
- Strategies for verifying AI-generated content and reducing hallucinations
- Using multi-tool validation with AI models like Perplexity AI and Claude
- Limitations of AI in handling data accuracy and research citations
AI for Specialists & Communication
- How AI helps deep specialists communicate with broader audiences
- Leveraging buyer personas to tailor AI-generated messaging
- Using AI to bridge communication gaps between neurodivergent and neurotypical audiences
AI for Neurodivergent Thinkers
- AI as an adaptive tool for executive function and workflow management
- The role of AI in supporting focus, organization, and stress reduction
- Ethical considerations of AI in self-reflection and emotional regulation
Overcoming AI Anxiety & Ethical Adoption
- The shift from AI anxiety to AI agency and practical steps for confident adoption
- The importance of emotional awareness in integrating AI into personal and professional workflows
- Resources for understanding the emotional impact of AI and strategies for responsible use

Notable Quotes:

"They don’t replace the human brain, but they are really good at organizing big messes of information." – Sara Lobkovich (00:04:00)

"If you have a multi-tool process and you leverage the strengths of one tool to shore up the weaknesses of another tool, then you can save a lot of time, but also a lot of mental energy." – Dvorah Graeser (00:06:00)

"As a place to start, I would actually begin by looking at how I feel about AI. I actually had to do that. I had to get emotional about AI before I could use it well. And it's simply because it is a very different tool. It is not going to do what you always expect. And so, for that reason, you need to get your own emotional house in order with it before you can start using it." – Dvorah Graeser (00:20:00)

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Thinkydoers Podcast and Episode Overview
01:00 From AI Anxiety to AI Agency – How Specialists Can Take Control
02:00 Organizing Chaotic Thoughts with AI – Turning Sticky Notes into Structure
04:00 The Power of Iteration – Using AI for Back-and-Forth Thinking
05:00 AI Hallucinations and Fact-Checking – Ensuring Accuracy in AI-Generated Content
07:00 The Role of Multi-Tool AI Validation – Using Perplexity AI, Claude, and ChatGPT Together
09:00 AI for Deep Specialists – Making Complex Knowledge Accessible to a Broader Audience
10:00 Leveraging AI for Buyer Personas – Adapting Communication for Different Audiences
12:00 AI as an Assistive Tool for Neurodivergent Thinkers – Supporting Executive Function
14:00 Emotional Processing with AI – AI as a Thought Partner for Self-Reflection
17:00 Ethical Considerations – AI as a Probability Machine vs. a Reliable Support System
19:00 Overcoming AI Anxiety – The Importance of Emotional Awareness in AI Adoption
20:00 Resources & Further Learning – Dvorah’s PDF on Emotions in AI & Q&A Invitation
21:00 Where to Find Dvorah – Connecting on LinkedIn and Exploring Future Discussions
22:00 Closing Remarks – Encouraging Listeners to Submit AI-Related Questions

Guest Information:

Dvorah Graeser is an AI ethicist, strategist, and technology entrepreneur specializing in AI applications, intellectual property, and ethical AI adoption. With a background in intellectual property law and technology commercialization, she has extensive experience helping deep specialists and businesses integrate AI responsibly. Dvorah advocates for leveraging AI to enhance human creativity and strategic thinking while addressing challenges like AI hallucinations and fact-checking. Based in the Netherlands, she works with organizations to navigate the evolving AI landscape with a focus on ethical and effective implementation.

Dvorah’s Resources Mentioned:

Dvorah's Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/dgraeser
Snag Dvorah’s Three-Page AI Transformation Blueprint: https://findrc.co/genaibydg
Websites: kisspatent.com
rocketsmart.io

Sara’s Links and Resources:

No-BS Strategic Achievement Intensive: Join our mailing list for waitlist information at ck.redcurrantco.com
Join Sara’s Email List: Get updates on OKRs and strategy at ck.redcurrantco.com
Book Website: Stay updated on You Are a Strategist at youareastrategist.com
Connect with Sara via LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, or Mastodon
Podcast Home Page: Thinkydoers Podcast
Book launch squad: f indrc.co/launchsquad

Find full show notes and the episode transcript via https://findrc.co/thinkydoers !

Full Episode Transcript:

Sara: Welcome to the Thinkydoers podcast. Thinkydoers are those of us drawn to deep work, where thinking is working. But we don't stop there. We're compelled to move the work from insight to idea, through the messy middle, to find courage and confidence to put our thoughts into action. I'm your host, Sara Lobkovich. I'm a strategy coach, a huge goal-setting and attainment nerd, and board-certified health and wellness coach, working at the overlap of work-life well-being. I'm also a Thinkydoer. I'm here to help others find more satisfaction, less frustration, less friction, and more flow in our work. My mission is to help changemakers like you transform our workplaces and world. So let's get started.

Sara: Welcome back to part two of my [00:01:00] conversation with Dvorah Graeser. In our last episode, we explored some of the ethics and implications of AI at work today. Now, we're getting practical. We'll discuss some specific and maybe surprising ways to leverage AI tools, particularly for deep specialists and those of us wired strategically. If you're ready to move from anxiety to agency with AI while maintaining your ethics and humanity, this episode's for you.

Dvorah, you mentioned kind of the shift from anxiety about AI to agency and how people can leverage AI around their creative vision, regardless of what their technical level of proficiency is. Tell me a bit more about how you see the use of AI enabling creative and multi-talented humans.

Dvorah: Well, one way that I personally like to use [00:02:00] AI—I don't know if you've gotten to this point when creating, written content, but I'll have a whole pile of thoughts, and they are all over the darn place. If they were sticky notes, they would be like Mount Everest of sticky notes. And I don't know what the heck to do with them, and I get very frustrated by this. One of the things that I have found that can be great to do is I shove the whole thing into, let's say, Claude. Now, Claude has a feature where you can copy and paste, but you can also upload. So, let's say you have a PDF and you have some written documents and some other stuff, and you just dump the whole thing into Claude. And I just say Claude exactly what I'm feeling — I don't know how to organize this, like, if I can't make sense of this, or I have one thought, I will write the thought, but the rest of it's not clear. What do I do? And then Claude very calmly chugs along and proposes something. They propose an outline. It can be helpful if you ask it for something specific, like an outline or whatever, but even if you don't, it'll still do its best. And then you start a dialogue. And this is one of the things I really do like about generative AI. [00:03:00] We have a dialogue, we go back and forth. I ask for constructive feedback because otherwise, it'll only say nice things. It's something about the generative AI. If you ask for constructive feedback, it'll also say the mean things. But I'm going back and forth, and as I'm going back and forth, in my own mind, I'm realizing, I don't like that bit, I do like this bit. Oh, I just thought of something completely different. Now, what went from a blizzard of ideas I couldn't organize will go to an organization that maybe isn't exactly what I want, but helps clear my mind, reduce my own anxiety, because it's often my anxiety that's leading to the pile-o'-sticky-notes problem, at least in my experience — and enables me to get to the point where I can do the organization. Even if it turns out that it's not Claude that has made the good proposal by interacting with it, I get to where I need to go.

Sara: That is the use case that has been the most transformative for me. And that's where I went from being a skeptic who was not likely to integrate these tools to being a hooked user. [00:04:00] They don't replace the human brain. You mentioned hallucinations in our first episode. I don't rely on models for facts or information, but they are really good at organizing big messes of information. The thing that frustrates me is sometimes they're poor at actually organizing data. Even when I train it on data and want data analysis or data, you know, stuff, that's been a big frustration for me with the current tools. Even when I train on data, it can still hallucinate, which is a bummer. That's the kind of stuff that I would think the models would be built to do really well, and with as little hallucination as possible. But maybe there's always going to be some hallucination.

Dvorah: There's a couple of ways around hallucination, right? And this again gets into process. We talked about it in the first, episode, but it's still important to bring up. You need to have a process [00:05:00] for dealing with this. So let us suppose you uploaded a bunch of data to, I don't know, let's say it was ChatGPT. It doesn't matter. You uploaded it, and it's still hallucinated. So what are ways to check this? One way to check this is to ask ChatGPT in the same session to go back, and to check its answers in comparison to the data and show where it got each answer from. This is also great for summarization, by the way. If it summarizes and it comes up with something, you say, "Okay, where did that really wonderful, great quote, where is it? Show me where it is." And they're like, "oh yeah, you're right, I kind of made that up." Okay, no problems, let's just move on. A third way for doing it is then to actually go to another tool like Perplexity and ask it to do research. So maybe you don't want to upload your sensitive data to Perplexity, but you can still ask it to do research on the area and give you some ideas of what the boundaries of the area that can help corral ChatGPT. Or you can go to a completely different tool. I guess the completely different tool is the third way of doing it. Let's say you go from ChatGPT to [00:06:00] Claude. You can go to Claude, and then you can say, "Hey, can you please check this? And what is good and what is bad, and please give me constructive feedback."

Sara: That's wild. In my early experimentation, when I was working on my book, there was some research I had, like actual research. I needed academic journal research. that was one of the things that was the most frustrating. I would think that models would be good at knowing that truthful data. Hopefully, this has changed since then. But I would ask for research, like, "What are the leading papers or core papers on a specific topic?" And it would make up papers. You've got ProQuest. It's all there. This you should get right.

Dvorah: So, for example, Perplexity AI, I like because it gives links. And you can go check them. ChatGPT sometimes does, sometimes doesn't, sometimes hallucinates, sometimes it's accurate. I'm never quite sure what it's going to do next, so I find that a little unreliable. There are some specialized GPTs for papers. There's one called Scholar [00:07:00] AI, and that's a good one, but there are other ones as well. So here, I think it's good to join with others to understand what they've done and what's worked for them. And that can change over time. So, for example, I like Scholar AI, but it's possible in a few months, someone's going to come back. Maybe they'll listen to this again. They'll be like, "Oh, but it's no longer good." Possible. Things change really quickly. So I think it's helpful to try out different specialty tools, to talk with other people about this on LinkedIn or another social media that you like. Mastodon, if you're into that. And try to get information about what is working right now and what is the process for working around some of these issues. So if I get anything from ChatGPT, because I have found it to be the most erratic when it comes to hallucinating, I will copy and paste the whole answer to Perplexity AI. And I'll say, "Is this right or wrong? Please give me feedback. Please find me references. What do you think?" And it will go through the whole thing and it'll say, "Well, this looks like it's correct. Couldn't find anything for this. I really don't know about that bit over there. And this is what I would do instead." And so Perplex AI will actually give you a long, [00:08:00] reasoned answer. This was without going into their deep research mode, which is awesome. But that's like a whole nother kettle of fish. It's just regular Perplexity AI. It'll actually go through these things. So I guess it's unlike Google in the sense where if you get a link and you click on the link, the link exists. If you get a summary with the link, does the link exist? Does it not exist? Does the summary say what the link says? Not always. So here we need to have more of a process for checking for these issues. It can still, however, save a lot of time because if you have a multi-tool process and you leverage the strengths of one tool to shore up the weaknesses of another tool, then you can save a lot of time, but also a lot of mental energy, which you can then spend on things like having deep human thoughts, not corralling the facts, but understanding what they mean from a human perspective, which no AI will really ever be able to do.

Sara: Yeah, you mentioned in our first conversation the benefits of these tools for people [00:09:00] with deep specialization. Andthat's my listeners, like, we're the ones that go deep. AndI definitely see that in my own work, that using these tools helps me make my work more accessible and more understandable to people, even as a deep specialist. They help me, if I need to zoom out and I can't do that on my own then that's something the tools are really good at — helping me figure out how to communicate with fill in the blank. Like, if I need to communicate with a general business audience that isn't my ICP or my ideal customer profile, so an audience that is majority neurotypical, for example. Most of my people are neurodivergent. And that's who I communicate pretty well with. But if I have to communicate with large groups of neurotypical people or just general population, then I have to adapt my communication style and fidelity and [00:10:00] altitude to that audience. And that's where I've found the tools super useful. But you mentioned how powerful these tools are for people with deep specialties. I'd love to hear more about that.

Dvorah: Well, just quickly going back to your idea of the persona. So let's suppose you want to talk to a persona that isn't naturally you, or that you don't often talk to, and you want to be able to communicate better with them, or maybe you just want to check what you're doing against a potential persona. There's a lot of work that's been done on buyer personas. HubSpot has some templates, no affiliation, just, templates. There's lots of good books on that. What I would actually recommend is learn about buyer personas from the marketing people. And you can literally upload your buyer persona into ChatGPT or Claude and say, "This is my persona. I need to communicate with this person. This is what I wrote." And if you have some examples— "And here's some examples of the kind of tone I'm trying." [00:11:00] Not so much in terms of the tone, but you could actually copy-paste articles in. "I like these articles, I like their tone. Gee, I wish I could write like that. Can you help me with that?" Learning about buyer personas from the marketing folks and then putting that into the AI can really be helpful. And this can also help deep specialists if they have to speak with the not deep specialists. When people are super knowledgeable about something and they have to talk with someone who is maybe not knowledgeable at all about that, but that person needs to know and they need to communicate, that can be really tough, because it's really easy to make assumptions. I'm totally guilty of this, done it a lot. So there. Again, having the persona, putting it into the ChatGPT, and then making clear that you want to have this be easily readable at, say, like a high school level, but with words that this persona would understand, would want to use, that is hugely helpful. And then, you can actually start with one tool, Or one session, let's say, of Claude, and bring it into another one. So let's say I use [00:12:00] Claude once, then I'll copy-paste everything into another Claude session, I'll say, "Please give me feedback. Constructive feedback." Otherwise, again, it won't give you the mean stuff. But yet another way that it can be helpful is, let's suppose you have done this work, and you now have a session in Claude, where it is really helping you produce what you need to take that next step. Keep that session going. Stay in the same session. Now, Claude will keep on saying things like, "This is getting long!" I hit "Continue." "This is really long, I really mean it." Continue, continue, continue, continue. Claude and I have a long time argument about that. And I know why that is, because it's hard for them to keep the whole session in. But once I have actually Claude communicating with me in a way that helps me, with wordsmithing or whatever it is. Keep going in that same session and then you will find that over time it becomes closer and closer to your ideal output of whatever type that is. Is it a good summary? Is it a way of wording things that is more better or more to the point [00:13:00] of what you want in your opinion than what you were doing by yourself? Whatever it is, keep going in that same session and don't let it distract you with another session. Say "Continue" all the time, and then you will find that you and the AI are really moving together as deep specialists, but with the output that is focused in the way that you want.

Sara: Yeah, I am also a Claude user. That was the one that, for me, felt the most acceptable in terms of policies and ethics.

I see a lot of the attention being paid to have these tools, write your marketing copy for you, or have these tools, God forbid, write a book like, you know, those things. And I don't use them for that at all. I use them for better understanding my thinking and the thinking of the people I interact with who give me permission to add their, verbal processing or [00:14:00] meeting transcripts to my models. I think partly too, because I am neurodivergent, I'm aware I have gaps in my executive functions. I think of Claude as almost an adaptive assistive technology for me, in helping me work with some of those executive functioning gaps that I'm aware of and that I know I have. So, are there any ways that you use the tools that you're surprised about?

Dvorah: I would actually say, first of all, I discussed the pile of sticky notes thing. I never expected that to work. I just simply thought it would fall down. It works really, really great for that. When it comes to having the AI do something like write your marketing copy, the problem is people mean different things by that. So for example, I would not have it write my marketing copy, but why is that? Well, first of all, I'm curious, who are my people? How do I want to talk with them? How do they talk amongst themselves? What do they say to each other? What are their concerns? I really want copy that is going to communicate with [00:15:00] them in a way that they want to be communicated with. One of the things that generative AI has helped me with is understanding how to break that down into processes. With verbal communication, I have less of an issue. I try to listen to the person, don't I? But try to like have it be an exchange of thoughts and all that. But when it comes to writing, I tend to default to me. I am the audience. Nooo. Now, ChatGPT and Claude will do the same thing. They default to corporate speak. Because that's what they think the default should be. So if you don't let them know about what you want, they're going to default. But then again, we do that as humans. So I don't think we can really blame the generative AI for this. Everyone's going to default to their comfort zone. What's great about generative AI is it helped me explore my comfort zone and break down generating marketing content into more pieces, which I then have an easier time tackling one on one and bringing it together for something which will appeal to the people I want to appeal to who are not me.

Sara: Yeah, for me, this is a bit of a disclosure, but for me, the other [00:16:00] use that I never would have imagined is I use it when I'm over a threshold, like when I'm under stress. I never imagined I would talk to one of these things about anything other than work, but it's almost become part of my mindfulness practice. Now, one of my tools is when something happens and I'm upset, or when something happens and I'm over threshold, or especially when I'm having conflict with someone else, I can sit down and say, "Okay, tool, here's what's happening. Here's how I feel." And they're remarkably empathetic, the ones that I use. Not a substitute for therapy, not a substitute for a coach or speaking with another human being, but that in the moment dysregulation that I experienced, they are helpful with me finding a way to regulate myself through that conversation. And that's a use I never would have imagined.

Dvorah: I agree with that point. I would divide the into two different aspects. So [00:17:00] when it's something like Claude, it's kind of like, I will talk things through with myself internally. So, Claude is really just simply mirroring back. In that case, I'm having an internal conversation with an external device that is kind of mirroring back. There are different kinds of LLMs out there who do try to do coaching or more therapeutic things. I'm always a bit nervous about that because I feel that expectations are higher. And even tools which are designed for this can still get themselves into trouble. Character AI, people were supposed to have these tools to be like AI companions. And there've been some really sad cases, often involving minor children, but quite frankly, some of these sad cases often involve adults. It's just when it's an adult, you can't do anything about it, right? They say, "Oh, it's just the way it is," Which I don't agree with. But when it's minor children, then people certainly do something about it. And there's some very sad stories about suicides and other issues involving the use of these. With children, it's one thing, I personally just wouldn't let children anywhere near them. That's [00:18:00] what I think. But even with adults, I don't think we already always realize that these are probability machines. If we think about it as having an internal conversation with ourselves, I think that's one thing. But if you're talking to a probability machine that's setting itself up to be a therapist, I get very nervous. And the reason why is it may not pick the right thing to say in that context. And, you know, humans in some ways are kind of delicate systems. We have all these little bits, moving parts and all these things going on. We should be nice to ourselves and we should be kind to ourselves. And when we're doing that, we have to think a little bit if we're interacting with this tool, is that being kind to ourself and are we doing it in a kind way?

Sara: I think you're spot on. And the other thing that comes to mind as you're talking is, I'm using the tool to talk to myself, kind of like you described, it's like, it's an external thing I'm talking to, but it's an extension of my own awareness and mindfulness. When we work with therapists, there's a reason [00:19:00] even with therapists, we do this with video, is that then they can observe all of the nonverbal communication and the tools at this point can't observe the nonverbal communication and make decisions about how to make that kind of calculation of how to respond. So I'm with you. I bring it up, you know, helpful in terms of exactly what you said, like kind of having a conversation with your better self when you're in a time of need. Dvorah, I don't want to end this, but we've got to wrap it up. or If you were going to tell someone who is anxious about generative AI tools, that shift from anxiety to agency, what would you say? What would you coach them as a place to start?

Dvorah: As a place to start, I would actually begin by looking at how I feel about AI. I actually had to do that. I had to get emotional about AI before I could use it well. And it's simply because it is a very different tool. It is not going to do what you always [00:20:00] expect. And so, for that reason, you need to get your own emotional house in order with it before you can start using it. And that is actually what I would recommend. Now, I actually sent you a link to something, which I think you're going to put in the show notes, which has a PDF where you can actually do that. Anyone listening to this, hit me up. We can hop on a call. We can talk about this. You can look at my PDF. There are resources out there. They're not as many that about emotions in AI. And I think that's a mistake. I think that people see it only as a technology, but if we want to use it well, it can't only be a technology like Microsoft Word. We have to be a little more vulnerable ourselves, and a little more open ourselves to using it, which means that we need to think about ourselves as we're using it.

Sara: Awesome answer. Well, Dvorah, speaking of, if people want to learn more about what you do or get connected with you, where can they find you?

Dvorah: They can find me on LinkedIn. D Graeser, G R A E S E R, I'm used to spelling my name. But I'm [00:21:00] also one of the few Dvorahs on LinkedIn, so you can definitely find me. There'll be the link in the show notes. So you can definitely hit me up there. Those are the best places to look for me because I am not really on any other form of social media. Although I know you're trying to get me on Mastodon. So maybe I'll add that.

Sara: I think that you would fit in just perfectly there. It really is the only thing I do that feels like old internet. It makes me want to type a zine on my typewriter and send it out by mail, like for real. well, Dvorah, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation, and this is when Dvorah is going to be back. So, if there are questions that you have that we didn't answer, send them in. I'd love to hear them and we'll schedule a follow-up. With Dvorah to get more of your questions answered. Thank you so much, Dvorah.

Dvorah: Thanks. Have a great day. Bye.

Sara: Bye.

Sara: Thank you for joining us for this exploration of practical AI applications with guest Dvorah Graeser. You can find Dvorah on LinkedIn [00:22:00] at D G R A E S E R. And we'll include that link in our show notes at findrc.co/pod. We've also got a link to the resource on emotions in AI that she mentioned in the show notes.

I know this episode is going to spark questions. We would love to hear them.

So if you have questions about AI use or LLMs or other things having to do with generative AI, please send them to me. Please share them with me. We would love to have Dvorah back to answer them in a future episode. And she and I talked about it after we stopped recording. We welcome questions of any kind.So, they don't all have to be pro-AI.As long as you're asking curiously and in good faith, we'll do our best to provide a helpful answer. And don't forget, if you haven't already, I'd love to have you on the launch squad for my upcoming books. I need advanced readers, people willing to write reviews if you like the book, social media amplifiers, and [00:23:00] really Just for folks to be excited, to help me get over the days where I don't feel so excited, or I feel scared to get this book into the world. If that might be you, join the squad at findrc.co/launchsquad, and I cannot wait to get this book into your hands.

Thank you for listening.

Sara: All right, friends, That's it for today.

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Got questions? My email addresses are too hard to spell, so visit findrc.co/contact and shoot me a note that way. You'll also find me at @saralobkovich on most of your favorite social media platforms.

For today's show notes, visit findrc.co/thinkydoers if there's someone you'd like featured on this podcast, drop me a [00:24:00] note. And if you know other Thinkydoers who'd benefit from this episode, please share. Your referrals, your word of mouth, and your reviews are much appreciated. I'm looking forward to the questions this episode sparks for you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.