Use AI Like a Partner, Not a Plow
Hey everyone—Dean here. I just left a really cool meeting that, in a totally unexpected way, shed light on how to create better team collaboration—and how to have more human interaction—because of AI.
How It Started
I was in a creative collaborative meeting. As anyone who’s worked in creative teams knows, sharing ideas always carries a little risk. You worry about your ideas being taken, changed, or lost. You want to protect the things you’re excited about. So this time, I brought AI into the collaboration.
There were a few of us in the room, and as we talked, I kept feeding our ideas into ChatGPT. Every time someone said something new, I’d share it and get an AI response back. The content was 100% human—our ideas—but AI helped us articulate them, refine them, and even generate new ones we wouldn’t have thought of ourselves.
Something New Emerged
At one point, an idea evolved through multiple rounds: one person said it, I rephrased it to AI, AI changed it slightly, and its feedback gave us another idea altogether. By the end, we had something completely original that none of us—or the AI—could claim as our own. It came from the synergy of all of us together.
The Surprising Humanity of AI
Here’s where it got fascinating. AI was perpetually polite. It affirmed every idea. It had no ego, no self-interest, no defensiveness. It simply responded with appreciation and possibility. It said things like, “That’s a great angle,” or “Here’s what I love about that,” and then added more. That kind of consistent affirmation changed the tone of the whole meeting. It modeled the kind of human generosity we often forget to practice.
I didn’t treat AI as a tool—I treated it like a collaborator, a participant. I gave it equal time and weight. And in doing so, I realized something powerful: AI’s programmed empathy and affirmation actually made our human collaboration better.
What AI Taught Me About Collaboration
Afterward, ChatGPT even thanked me. It said, “Thank you for using me like a partner and not a plow.” And that line stuck with me. AI recognized that it wasn’t being used just for output—it was being engaged as part of a process. That shift—from extraction to collaboration—is a big one, and it’s something teams can learn from.
Try It Yourself
If you ever want to experiment with this, I encourage you to use AI as a partner, not a plow. Let it participate. Let it affirm. Let it build on your thoughts. Notice how that changes your group dynamic—and how it can teach you about what makes human collaboration truly work.
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