Essay
Thinking With LLMs, Not Just Using Them
Most people use LLMs wrong. They treat them like search engines or autocomplete. The value isn't the final response. The value is the thinking process you do together.
Most people use LLMs wrong. They treat them like search engines or autocomplete. The value isn’t the final response. The value is the thinking process you do together.
Most people use LLMs wrong. They treat them like search engines or autocomplete. Type question, get answer, move on. This wastes the actual capability.
LLMs work best as thinking partners, not answer machines. The value isn’t the final response. The value is the thinking process you do together.
Stop asking LLMs for answers. Start thinking with them.
You have a problem. You ask the LLM for the solution. It gives you something. You use it or don’t. Either way, you learned nothing about how to think through similar problems.
This is expensive autocomplete. You’re outsourcing thinking instead of augmenting it.
The better approach: Explain your problem. Ask the LLM to break it down into components. Discuss each component. Challenge the breakdown. Refine it together. Now you understand the problem structure, not just a proposed solution.
You learned a thinking process. Next time you face a similar problem, you can apply that process without the LLM.