This is how to talk to AI so it stops being generic
The #1 reason AI gives you horoscope answers: you asked a horoscope question. Skill one, and the one every other skill stands on.
This is how to talk to AI so it stops being generic. It’s the first skill on this site because every other one stands on it.
Most people try AI, get an answer that reads like a horoscope, and reasonably conclude the whole thing is overrated. Here’s the mechanism they’re missing: AI answers the question you actually asked. Ask the question anyone could ask, get the answer everyone would get.
Watch the same question, asked twice
A real one: choosing a laptop. First, the way almost everyone asks:
The generic ask:
What’s the best laptop to buy?
What it gave back (recognize this?):
It depends on your needs! For general use, consider the MacBook Air or Dell XPS 13. Gamers may prefer... Budget options include... Ultimately, choose what fits your priorities.
Useless, politely. Now the same question from the same person, carrying their actual situation:
The loaded ask:
Help me pick a laptop. My situation: I edit family videos maybe once a month, otherwise it’s browser tabs and spreadsheets. My last laptop died of a swollen battery in 3 years and that annoyed me more than anything. I have $900, I hate fan noise, and I will never game on it. What should I buy, and what am I overpaying for if I go above budget?
What it gave back:
Your battery story is the tell: prioritize build quality over specs. At $900 with monthly video editing, you’re in refurbished MacBook Air M-series territory, and here’s the thing you’re NOT paying for: the extra RAM tiers matter for daily editors, not monthly ones...
Same tool. Same day. The difference was never the AI; it was that the second ask contained a life.
The five details that change everything
You don’t need clever phrasing. You need to include what a knowledgeable friend would have asked you anyway:
- Your situation: the facts on the ground. What you have, where you are, who’s involved.
- Your constraint: budget, time, the bad knee, the picky eater. Constraints don’t limit the answer; they aim it.
- Your goal: what "solved" looks like. "Cheaper" and "quieter" produce different laptops.
- What you’ve tried: kills the useless suggestions on arrival.
- Your history with this: the swollen battery. The last contractor who burned you. History is the context nobody thinks to give and the one that changes the most.
Every moment on this site is this skill wearing different clothes: the doctor post is symptoms-plus-history, the paint post is photos-plus-lighting, the date post is her-not-a-generic-her.
Where this skill does NOT help
Context makes advice better. It does not make facts truer. If you ask what year a bridge was built, no amount of your life story improves the answer, and a confident wrong answer is still wrong. Context is for decisions, plans, and comparisons. Facts get verified, which is its own skill, covered in this series.
One more honest note: more context also means more of your life in the chat. The what-not-to-paste rule (also its own skill) travels with this one: situations yes, account numbers never.
The habit
Before sending anything that matters, add one sentence starting with "My situation:". That single habit, applied for a week, will change your opinion of what this technology is.
This is how to use AI.