OpenAI Interest Groups

AI in Higher Education

Caltech CTME & Goldhirsh Foundation

Caltech CTME AI Strategy & AI Executive in Residence @ Caltech CTME & Goldhirsh Foundation

Wharton

Executive MBA Student @ Wharton

Stanford University

Director of Clinical Pathology Informatics @ Stanford University

OpenAI

Human Data / Forum Community Ambassador @ OpenAI

Fiserv

OpenAI Forum Leader | Project Management Advisor – Data Commerce Solutions, Fiserv @ Fiserv

CUNY

Lecturer @ CUNY

Harvard Business School

Student @ Harvard Business School

Professor @ Harvard Business School

Education GTM @ OpenAI

NYU Stern School of Business

Chief AI Architect @ NYU Stern School of Business

I wanted to share a perspective I’ve been living and teaching this past year, because I believe it can transform how we work with AI—and how we feel about it.


Most of us have been taught to see AI through the metaphor of 

: as something smart, even sentient, that makes decisions for us. But in my experience, that framing is not only misleading—it’s harmful.


See it as something alien, foreign, or alive. 

Feel pressured to craft perfect prompts like magic spells. 

Hoard the few that “work,” afraid we won’t get them right again. 

Fear we’ll be replaced by something superhuman. 

Start imagining a future where we must beg our tools for mercy. 


—word choices and ideas people poured themselves into, hoping to help someone someday. When you see that, everything shifts:

You’re not working with an alien intelligence. You’re exploring humanity.

Every prompt is a chance to invite the voices of thousands of people to help you do what you care about. You are the source of the request—and you remain essential in the loop.

You’re not in a contest to outsmart the machine.

You’re in a conversation, bringing your own voice, values, and clarity to the interaction.

You are both the creator and the beneficiary.

AI is built from our collective expression—and it’s here to serve us, not replace us.

When we embrace this, prompting stops being trial and error and starts feeling like something more human: asking clearly, collaborating openly, and trusting that the chorus of human contributions behind the model is here to help.

If you’re looking for a formula for “prompt engineering,” I offer this instead:

Click the microphone icon, and be yourself—out loud.

 is more powerful than optimization. And seeing AI as a reflection of humanity rather than intelligence is the shift that can help us all feel more confident, less afraid, and more empowered to create good things together. 

Every time you interact, you’re getting back the most statistically significant, crowdsourced behaviors people would most popularly give. That is so valuable, so beautiful—and decidedly not “artificial intelligence.” It’s acting like a human to see how humans would respond, statistically, based on the data. Having the ability to explore humanity again and again? It’s a gift—one that right now feels so much more attractive than any imagined future of AGI or ASI.

We get to experience the best of each other without having to read 130 million books, visit 1.1 billion websites, or watch 94,643 years of available YouTube content. It’s not perfect—bias still needs to be navigated—but 

, is it meaningful to meet your needs with all of humanity and all its diversity at your side, supporting you again and again.

I hope this perspective offers some encouragement and maybe a little relief. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed or uneasy about AI, you’re not alone—and you are still the most essential part of the process. You are fantastic—absolutely fantastic.

✨ The Intelligence Metaphor Holds Us Back—AI Is Human Data, and That Changes Everything

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