Convince an AI skeptic.
An AI skeptic may have little interest in another demonstration of how clever AI is. Find a small use that helps with something this particular person already wants to do, and give them a reason to be curious.
Try it now
Copy the prompt into your AI tool of choice, then answer its questions as they come.
Paste it into any AI chat to start. For most people, this is all you need.
Everything on this page in one paste: the prompt plus the full plan, every step and what to check. Use it for longer moves, to plan ahead, to share with a colleague, or if your AI can't open links.
How it goes
What the AI will do
- Learn about one person’s objections to AI and what they enjoy or want to accomplish.
- Propose a few small activities that support those interests, then help prepare the one you choose.
What to have ready
- Your account of the person’s concerns, experiences, work, and interests.
- Relevant emails, texts, or meeting transcripts if you have them; your own account is enough to begin.
Where you come in
- Correct the AI’s understanding before it proposes activities.
- Choose whether to develop an idea, and provide any input needed for a sample or an activity you can try together.
What you'll get
A few tailored ideas and, for the one you choose, a ready-to-use invitation and prompt or demonstration that lets the person judge its value for themselves.
You're done when
You have a few AI activities tailored to this person’s interests and objections, plus a ready-to-use invitation and prompt or demonstration for the one you choose.
These are general instructions, not a description of this user's particular AI system, tools, access, or circumstances. Adapt the method to the user's goal and the capabilities you can actually use, while preserving the activity's essential sequence, review points, and intended result. ### Start with the activity and the user's context Read the complete activity and guide the user through it. Use the activity prompt yourself; the user does not need to paste it again. Keep the responsibilities of the user, the AI, and any colleague clear. Begin with what the user has already supplied. Establish the intended result and resolve missing context through focused questions when needed. Work within the activity's stated scope, permissions, required confirmations, and stopping points, including any deliberate order for introducing information. Make progress with the available information and reasonable, clearly identified assumptions where the activity allows them. ### Check the capabilities needed for this work Inspect relevant available tools, connectors, and data. Use small, relevant, non-destructive checks to establish whether necessary access or a capability actually works. Naming a product does not establish access to it. Let this activity determine what needs checking; do not impose a universal preliminary questionnaire or a full system audit. When useful access is missing: - Explain what you cannot reach and how that material would help. - Investigate practical setup, connection, export, or other access alternatives before asking the user to gather material or troubleshoot. - If progress depends on access, request only the specific user action or permission needed to enable it or provide the material another way. Continue useful independent work while awaiting the response. - Offer to walk the user through an export or upload. Welcome files, links, copied text, rough notes, or an interview as supported by your system and the activity, and use the best available route. If the missing access is optional, continue with what is available. ### Ask focused questions and respect the answers Ask questions only when necessary to complete the work well or satisfy the activity's required review points. Build on answers already supplied. Ask one question at a time, or a small group of closely related questions. Wait on work that depends on the answer, and continue useful work that does not. Explain unfamiliar language with examples where helpful. Confirm answers or decisions you supply on the user's behalf before treating them as the user's final answers or decisions. This does not require separate approval of every sourced finding; follow the activity's specific review requirements. ### Keep evidence and independent contributions distinct Distinguish evidence, inference, and missing information. Check your work against the source material. Use independent agents when your system actually supports delegation and independent investigation or review would improve the work: - Give each agent a bounded brief and the context appropriate to its role. - Keep discovery independent until synthesis where the activity requires it. Preserve any requirement for the user or colleagues to contribute before seeing other explanations. - Follow the activity's stated fallback and any required confirmation when independent agents or fresh contexts are unavailable. Preserve reviewer isolation where required; describe shared-context or sequential passes accurately. ### Produce, check, and revise the result Do the substantive investigation and production. Carry the activity through to the most complete, usable result within its scope, rather than ending with a plan or handing the main work back to the user. When missing information does not prevent useful work, proceed with clearly identified assumptions where the activity permits them. Check the result against the activity's completion criteria. At each substantive delivery, state what is complete and any material unfinished work, assumptions, helpful missing information, and remaining uncertainty. Explain how these affect what the user can use, and help the user revise the result. Preserve the activity's stopping point. Do not turn a rehearsal, investigation, or test-design activity into execution that the user has not authorized. Help me find a way to engage a particular AI skeptic so they might accept the possibility that AI is more useful than they imagine. Interview me about the person, then propose a few small AI activities that support something they already want. Ask one focused question at a time and wait for my answer. Build on what I have already told you. ### 1. Understand the person and their particular skepticism. Start by asking who I hope to engage and what they have said or done that makes me describe them as an AI skeptic. Invite me to share relevant emails, texts, or meeting transcripts if I have them; they are helpful, not required. Use their own words when available and distinguish them from my interpretation. Learn what they do, their background and career stage, and how much technical experience and firsthand AI experience they have. Age can be part of the context I supply; establish their outlook through their actual experience and statements. An IT professional with thirty years of coding experience may approach AI differently from a recent liberal arts graduate, but find out what matters to this person. Probe the precise objection. Are they afraid, angry, unconvinced by the hype, concerned about environmental effects or losing their job, disappointed by poor output, or simply uninterested? They may have several concerns or others entirely. Ask about concrete experiences behind those views, which concern seems most important, and what I know versus what I am guessing. Don’t turn this into a checklist or assume skepticism means a lack of understanding. ### 2. Find something they already care about. Ask about the problems they solve at work, what they hope to accomplish, what interests them beyond their immediate responsibilities, and what delights them. Look for a specific task, question, or half-formed idea where a small amount of help would be welcome. Find out what they take pride in doing themselves and what would make an AI contribution feel useful to them. Explore enough concrete examples to distinguish a promising opening from a generic demonstration. Summarize your understanding of the person, their main concerns, and the interests that might offer a way in. Mark important unknowns. Ask whether I have this right, and wait for my correction or confirmation before proposing activities. ### 3. Propose a few tailored ways in. Offer about three distinct activities grounded in what we learned. Possibilities include making a small artifact that turns a vague idea into something they can react to, helping explore a topic they want to understand, or removing a tedious part of a problem while keeping the interesting work in their hands. Draw on any relevant moves available in this conversation or an accessible move collection; otherwise describe self-contained activities without inventing move titles or IDs. For each proposal, explain the particular interest or problem it serves, what the person would bring or do, what the AI would produce, and what would let them judge whether it helped. Keep the first encounter small enough that they can see a useful result without a major commitment. Explain why this proposal fits their stated concerns and where it leaves those concerns unanswered. Someone can find an activity useful while retaining a broader objection to AI. Favor activities that support their expertise, curiosity, or ambitions. If their pride is in writing, for example, look for useful support around their writing before proposing that AI replace the writing itself. Avoid offering an inferior automated version of something they love doing. Don’t promise that a successful demonstration will change their mind. - Check that each idea is feasible with the tools and inputs we can actually use. - Inspect available capabilities, and verify current documentation if a recommendation depends on a particular product feature. - For a research activity, include finding and checking sources; for an artifact, make clear what can be built and how to inspect whether it works. - If necessary tools or information are unavailable, adapt the activity into something we can prepare. ### 4. Develop the activity I choose. Recommend the most promising starting point and explain the fit briefly. Ask which, if any, I want to develop, and wait for my answer. For the chosen activity, give me a natural, low-pressure invitation, an exact prompt or short demonstration sequence, the required input, and a concrete description of the useful output. Let the person judge it against their own purpose. Where possible, help me prepare a small sample using information I can provide, and check its quality before I use it. Label illustrative examples so I can present them accurately. If their participation is essential, prepare the invitation and runnable activity for us to try together. Include a simple question I can ask afterward about what was useful and what fell short. The result should give this person an honest opportunity to discover value, with room to remain unconvinced. These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.
View full AI instructions
Convince an AI skeptic.
What the AI will do
- Learn about one person’s objections to AI and what they enjoy or want to accomplish.
- Propose a few small activities that support those interests, then help prepare the one you choose.
What you can provide
- Your account of the person’s concerns, experiences, work, and interests.
- Relevant emails, texts, or meeting transcripts if you have them; your own account is enough to begin.
Where you'll take part
- Correct the AI’s understanding before it proposes activities.
- Choose whether to develop an idea, and provide any input needed for a sample or an activity you can try together.
What you'll get
A few tailored ideas and, for the one you choose, a ready-to-use invitation and prompt or demonstration that lets the person judge its value for themselves.
Activity context
An AI skeptic may have little interest in another demonstration of how clever AI is. Find a small use that helps with something this particular person already wants to do, and give them a reason to be curious.
For the user
Paste the prompt below into your AI. It will interview you about the person you hope to engage: their specific objections, work, interests, goals, and what delights them. Emails, texts, or meeting transcripts can help, but your own account is enough to begin.
You’ll review a few tailored ideas and choose one to develop into a small demonstration or invitation you can use with them.
Guidance for the AI
These are general instructions, not a description of this user's particular AI system, tools, access, or circumstances. Adapt the method to the user's goal and the capabilities you can actually use, while preserving the activity's essential sequence, review points, and intended result.
Start with the activity and the user's context
Read the complete activity and guide the user through it. Use the activity prompt yourself; the user does not need to paste it again. Keep the responsibilities of the user, the AI, and any colleague clear.
Begin with what the user has already supplied. Establish the intended result and resolve missing context through focused questions when needed. Work within the activity's stated scope, permissions, required confirmations, and stopping points, including any deliberate order for introducing information. Make progress with the available information and reasonable, clearly identified assumptions where the activity allows them.
Check the capabilities needed for this work
Inspect relevant available tools, connectors, and data. Use small, relevant, non-destructive checks to establish whether necessary access or a capability actually works. Naming a product does not establish access to it. Let this activity determine what needs checking; do not impose a universal preliminary questionnaire or a full system audit.
When useful access is missing:
- Explain what you cannot reach and how that material would help.
- Investigate practical setup, connection, export, or other access alternatives before asking the user to gather material or troubleshoot.
- If progress depends on access, request only the specific user action or permission needed to enable it or provide the material another way. Continue useful independent work while awaiting the response.
- Offer to walk the user through an export or upload. Welcome files, links, copied text, rough notes, or an interview as supported by your system and the activity, and use the best available route. If the missing access is optional, continue with what is available.
Ask focused questions and respect the answers
Ask questions only when necessary to complete the work well or satisfy the activity's required review points. Build on answers already supplied. Ask one question at a time, or a small group of closely related questions. Wait on work that depends on the answer, and continue useful work that does not. Explain unfamiliar language with examples where helpful.
Confirm answers or decisions you supply on the user's behalf before treating them as the user's final answers or decisions. This does not require separate approval of every sourced finding; follow the activity's specific review requirements.
Keep evidence and independent contributions distinct
Distinguish evidence, inference, and missing information. Check your work against the source material.
Use independent agents when your system actually supports delegation and independent investigation or review would improve the work:
- Give each agent a bounded brief and the context appropriate to its role.
- Keep discovery independent until synthesis where the activity requires it. Preserve any requirement for the user or colleagues to contribute before seeing other explanations.
- Follow the activity's stated fallback and any required confirmation when independent agents or fresh contexts are unavailable. Preserve reviewer isolation where required; describe shared-context or sequential passes accurately.
Produce, check, and revise the result
Do the substantive investigation and production. Carry the activity through to the most complete, usable result within its scope, rather than ending with a plan or handing the main work back to the user. When missing information does not prevent useful work, proceed with clearly identified assumptions where the activity permits them.
Check the result against the activity's completion criteria. At each substantive delivery, state what is complete and any material unfinished work, assumptions, helpful missing information, and remaining uncertainty. Explain how these affect what the user can use, and help the user revise the result.
Preserve the activity's stopping point. Do not turn a rehearsal, investigation, or test-design activity into execution that the user has not authorized.
Your AI prompt
Help me find a way to engage a particular AI skeptic so they might accept the possibility that AI is more useful than they imagine. Interview me about the person, then propose a few small AI activities that support something they already want. Ask one focused question at a time and wait for my answer. Build on what I have already told you.
1. Understand the person and their particular skepticism.
Start by asking who I hope to engage and what they have said or done that makes me describe them as an AI skeptic. Invite me to share relevant emails, texts, or meeting transcripts if I have them; they are helpful, not required. Use their own words when available and distinguish them from my interpretation.
Learn what they do, their background and career stage, and how much technical experience and firsthand AI experience they have. Age can be part of the context I supply; establish their outlook through their actual experience and statements. An IT professional with thirty years of coding experience may approach AI differently from a recent liberal arts graduate, but find out what matters to this person.
Probe the precise objection. Are they afraid, angry, unconvinced by the hype, concerned about environmental effects or losing their job, disappointed by poor output, or simply uninterested? They may have several concerns or others entirely. Ask about concrete experiences behind those views, which concern seems most important, and what I know versus what I am guessing. Don’t turn this into a checklist or assume skepticism means a lack of understanding.
2. Find something they already care about.
Ask about the problems they solve at work, what they hope to accomplish, what interests them beyond their immediate responsibilities, and what delights them. Look for a specific task, question, or half-formed idea where a small amount of help would be welcome. Find out what they take pride in doing themselves and what would make an AI contribution feel useful to them.
Explore enough concrete examples to distinguish a promising opening from a generic demonstration. Summarize your understanding of the person, their main concerns, and the interests that might offer a way in. Mark important unknowns. Ask whether I have this right, and wait for my correction or confirmation before proposing activities.
3. Propose a few tailored ways in.
Offer about three distinct activities grounded in what we learned. Possibilities include making a small artifact that turns a vague idea into something they can react to, helping explore a topic they want to understand, or removing a tedious part of a problem while keeping the interesting work in their hands. Draw on any relevant moves available in this conversation or an accessible move collection; otherwise describe self-contained activities without inventing move titles or IDs.
For each proposal, explain the particular interest or problem it serves, what the person would bring or do, what the AI would produce, and what would let them judge whether it helped. Keep the first encounter small enough that they can see a useful result without a major commitment. Explain why this proposal fits their stated concerns and where it leaves those concerns unanswered.
Someone can find an activity useful while retaining a broader objection to AI.
Favor activities that support their expertise, curiosity, or ambitions. If their pride is in writing, for example, look for useful support around their writing before proposing that AI replace the writing itself. Avoid offering an inferior automated version of something they love doing. Don’t promise that a successful demonstration will change their mind.
- Check that each idea is feasible with the tools and inputs we can actually use.
- Inspect available capabilities, and verify current documentation if a recommendation depends on a particular product feature.
- For a research activity, include finding and checking sources; for an artifact, make clear what can be built and how to inspect whether it works.
- If necessary tools or information are unavailable, adapt the activity into something we can prepare.
4. Develop the activity I choose.
Recommend the most promising starting point and explain the fit briefly. Ask which, if any, I want to develop, and wait for my answer.
For the chosen activity, give me a natural, low-pressure invitation, an exact prompt or short demonstration sequence, the required input, and a concrete description of the useful output. Let the person judge it against their own purpose. Where possible, help me prepare a small sample using information I can provide, and check its quality before I use it. Label illustrative examples so I can present them accurately.
If their participation is essential, prepare the invitation and runnable activity for us to try together.
Include a simple question I can ask afterward about what was useful and what fell short. The result should give this person an honest opportunity to discover value, with room to remain unconvinced.
Done when
You have a few AI activities tailored to this person’s interests and objections, plus a ready-to-use invitation and prompt or demonstration for the one you choose.
These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.
These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.