Level 01 showed you the model knows nothing about your life. This level is the flip side — the moment you hand it your material, it stops being a clever stranger and starts being useful. This is where most people's opinion of AI changes for good.
A mediocre question about your actual stuff beats a brilliant question about nothing — because the model works from what's in front of it.
Asking an AI general questions is using it as a worse search engine. Handing it your class notes, your draft message, your application, your plan — that's using it as an assistant. Same model, different league.
Getting your world in front of it takes one of three forms, and all of them are allowed to be messy:
Notes, an email thread, a draft, an assignment brief, a job listing. Messy is fine — cleaning up mess is one of the things it's best at.
Most AI chats accept files and photos now. A PDF handout, a screenshot of the whiteboard, a photo of a paper form — all readable.
When there's nothing to paste, be the source: "I'm 16, applying for a Saturday job at a garden center, never had a job, and the form asks why I want to work there. Here's what's true about me: …"
Once your material is in front of it, nearly everything worth doing is one of four verbs: summarize, critique, transform, quiz.
"Give me the 5 things in these notes most likely to be on the test."
"Read my draft as the person receiving it. What lands badly? What's missing? Be honest."
"Turn this wall of text into a table." "Make this formal email friendly." "Turn my rough bullets into a paragraph that sounds like me."
"Quiz me on this until I get 5 in a row right. One question at a time. Get harder as I improve."
Paste first, then say the job: "Here's [material]. [Verb] it [for this purpose]." That one sentence-shape covers homework, messages, applications, planning — most of life admin.
Before this becomes a habit, set the boundary once and keep it forever. Never paste:
Passwords and codes — no legitimate use, ever. Full ID numbers — passport, bank details, government IDs. Other people's private stuff — their messages, medical info, secrets; not yours to share with any service. When in doubt, swap real names for fake ones — the advice will be just as good.
That's the whole rule. It costs you nothing — the model doesn't need your friend's real name to help you reply to them. Level 05 goes deeper on trust; this list is the part that can't wait.
Paste it, attach it, or describe it precisely — messy is fine.
Summarize, critique, transform, quiz. "Here's X — do Y with it for Z."
Passwords, ID numbers, other people's private stuff. Swap real names for fake ones.
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