Using artificial intelligence with Claude: the wife test

Please, try using artificial intelligence and learn how to use it. I think it’s essential, whatever your field and your age.

Which one?

I use Claude because it’s the most programmer-friendly. But there are lots of them: Chinese, French, other American ones. Try one, maybe with a good agent, it’s easier than you think.

Students: study better, don’t get your homework done for you

Let’s say from 14 up, which seems a sensible age for tech devices. Use it to study better, not to have it do your homework.

During my school years I had teachers who never got me interested, and that made studying hard. Try asking it to explain a topic starting from something you like: I loved computer games, and maybe I had to do inequalities. Ask for an explanation using a Call of Duty example, and see what comes out.

If you work

Try it in your field: quotes if you’re a tradesperson, correspondence, projects, anything you had in mind and kept saying “I don’t have time” for. I’m talking about digital organisation: for physical work the robots aren’t here yet. They’ll come, but it’s early.

Seniors: stop saying it’s not coming

I’m 38, and people my age are in the senior phase. Stop saying “no, it’s not coming”: use it, because if you don’t, you risk being replaced. And juniors, do it even sooner: you have the time and the mental freshness, and maybe no stroller to push yet.

If you manage a team

Maybe you already manage teams, you’re not interested, you don’t have time. Fine: put someone on experiments and have them report back. Learn sideways.

Over 60: start from a passion

Even at retirement age, give it a try. Ask a son, a daughter or the nearest thirty-something to set everything up, and start from a passion: reading, writing, planning a trip.

The wife test

I call it the wife test. My wife is going to hate me. But if a technology is so convenient that she uses it well, even though she’s not into it at all, then it’s usable enough for everyone.

I’d been telling her for a while: try it, it opens your mind to new possibilities. “I don’t have time, I don’t have time.” At some point I said enough.

The Linux laptop and Claude

I set up her laptop, with Linux of course, and connected it to the Claude subscription, with a browser it can use. Using it only in the cloud never convinced me: without a connected computer it tells you “I can’t open the browser”. This way it’s much more convenient.

Buying things online with AI? Not yet, at least for me: mostly because of silly mistakes, the kind I make too, which I don’t want to risk when money is involved.

Second-hand books bought automatically

But she managed to do something she’d been doing by hand for a long time: buying second-hand books from a poorly made platform that took time and effort to search.

I told her: ask Claude. You tell it what you want, it suggests how to do it, as if you had a software engineer working for you. And it did it. Now that job runs automatically, and she found her use case.

Do you have a use case like that? Tell me in the comments on the video (it’s in Italian).