Leverage Maps #19: AI As An Intellectual Sparring Partner

After 3+ years in engineering and taking time to reflect during my sabbatical, I've discovered something powerful: an important use case for ChatGPT, or other large language models, is it thinking alongside you.

Here's what collaboration between a human and AI can look like:

The Question Loop: Like with the Socratic method, the magic happens in the back-and-forth. While studying for my FE Mechanical Engineering exam, I used AI to trace complex formulas back to fundamental principles. Each "why" led to deeper understanding and unexpected connections.

The Draft Mirror: AI surfaces your half-formed thoughts and blind spots. My process: generate an idea → get a rough draft → refine → polish. It's like having a mirror that shows you what you're really thinking.

The Reflection Partner: During my career transition, guided introspection with AI helped me spot patterns I missed while in execution mode. Those insights became frameworks for repositioning myself in the market and helping me cement my convictions for the future.

But here's the caveat: AI can become an echo chamber if you're not careful. It's trained to be helpful, which means it might tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear.

The key is using AI not as a replacement for critical thinking, but as a catalyst for it.

How are you using AI to think better, not just work faster?

These insights seed Chapter 1 of my upcoming book Leverage Maps: Mental Models for Making Systems Move.