Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt argues that AI is fundamentally passive and only responds when prompted, making human initiative the real competitive edge. He shares stories of his daughter using AI to write a letter and his mother's resistance to technology, showing that mindset matters more than skill. His concrete experiment: find one small friction in your work, ask AI for a first step, test it within an hour.
Chapters
Hey friends, I'm Frederic and I'm reading this next letter to you today from in front of my dome here in my garden here in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I started doing this because I realized sometimes words on a screen can feel somehow distant. But when we share them in voice, in presence, they can really land differently. And so my hope is that hearing these reflections feels more like sitting together, taking a pause, and maybe walking away with something that sparks you, that helps you, or makes you see the future maybe a little differently. So this one is called Your edge in the age of AI. I remember it was Valentine's Day and my 9-year-old daughter wanted to write a letter to our neighbor. She asked me for a paper and a pen, and a few minutes later she handed over a beautifully written heartfelt note. Longer and deeper than anything I'd ever expected from a child her age. Weeks later, our neighbor showed me the letter again, marveling at it. And that's when I realized my daughter hadn't written it alone. She had quietly opened an AI tool, poured in her feelings, and let the machine help her shape the words. So she didn't ask for permission, she didn't overthink it, she just used it. And in that moment, I saw two things very, very clearly: a generation that will grow up as natives in this new world, and the maybe uncomfortable truth: AI is only as powerful as the mind state of the person using it. So one question I want to ask you today: What's the one thing AI will never do, and how does that give you an edge? One perspective: AI waits, humans begin. So I've spent years with brilliant AI researchers and practitioners, friends like Christian, a director of AI research at Google. Hi, Christian. And here's what they'll all tell you: AI doesn't care, it doesn't notice, it doesn't start. Like Sam Altman, who put it plainly recently in an interview. He said, AI, they don't do anything unless you ask. They're just sitting there kind of waiting. They don't have a sense of agency or even autonomy. And that's the billion-dollar insight. AI is powerful, we all know that, but it's passive. It won't notice friction in your day. It won't sense the unspoken need, maybe in your team. It won't volunteer to solve a problem nobody has named yet. It won't feel the discomfort of standing in front of an overflowing trash bin. It won't wonder why supermarket shelves are full while people still go hungry. And it won't pause to ask, Does it really have to be this way? Only humans can. Second perspective. Initiative is a mind state. So in a recent podcast, my Stanford colleague and good friend Jeremy Utley calls this being the prompt. Because AI is like maybe rocket fuel, but fuel doesn't decide where to go. We do. When we lead with empathy and curiosity and openness and optimism, we give direction to the machine. We supply the one thing AI will never have: the will to begin. And I saw this vividly in my own family when ChatGPT first launched. I remember November 2022, I called my mom. Hi, Mom. My kids call her, um, Insta Mom— Insta Oma, sorry, Insta Oma. And normally the first thing she does is try new things. But this time she hesitated. She didn't want to try. And the difference between my mom and my daughter, not their intelligence, not their skills, their mind state, it is their way of looking at things, their mind state. One is closed, one open, one waiting, One starting. So one experiment I encourage you to try this week: don't wait for the prompt, try this instead. I want you to notice a bug, so something that bothers you. Write down one small friction in your work or even in your life, something everyone else probably ignores. And ask AI to help. Prompt it: I'm frustrated by X, Y, and Z. Design me a simple first step I can try today. And then experiment fast. Give yourself 1 hour to test its suggestion. Not to make it perfect, just to see what happens. Share it. Tell a friend: Hey, here's something I tried. Want to see if it helps you too. And you'll notice with that experiment something powerful: AI can accelerate the how, but the why, the spark to begin, always starts with you. That's your edge, not despite AI but because of it. The most powerful prompt is the one you give yourself. What needs doing that nobody is asking for? AI can answer, but only you can begin. The future isn't waiting for permission. It's waiting for you to be the prompt. I share this next letter every other Friday. If this sparked something for you, feel free to forward it to a friend or somebody in your family who could use a reminder. I'm Frederik, and, uh, this is NextLetter.
