Small Steps with AI

Binoculars around my neck, standing at the edge of a marsh — that’s how I started this morning, and it’s also how I want to start this episode, because today is about something practical: what AI actually looks like when you use it for a hobby you love, when you’re not a technical person and have zero interest in becoming one. Turning 15 Years of Data Into Something Usable. My friend and I have lo...

I was listening to a podcast interview with a former CIA hacker talking about AI, and his framing of how people use it was so different from my experience that I had to stop and figure out why. His version had AI as something that happens to you — a validation dealer, a passive addiction. My version is completely different. And I think the difference has a lot less to do with the AI and a lot more...

My backyard had been beating me for years. It’s big, woodland, weedy — and I love nature, but I have never loved gardening. Every spring I’d tell myself “this is the year,” and every summer I’d come back from birding or camping to find it had turned into a jungle while I wasn’t looking. I finally sat down with AI and described the actual problem — not a plant list, the feeling. Describe the feelin...

I didn’t expect a performance review to become a podcast episode. But that’s exactly what happened when I sat down to write my annual self-evaluation, asked AI to take a look at it, and AI told me — in no uncertain terms — that I wrote my performance review like I did some stuff and nobody died. That stung. And it was completely accurate. This episode is the story of what happened when I stopped t...

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I went back to the retirement conversation — but this time, I didn't bring numbers. I brought the feelings. In Part 1, I ran through the scenarios, looked at the variables, and watched some of the fog lift. But even with clearer numbers, the low hum of anxiety was still there. So I opened a second conversation and told AI the truth: I still felt nervous, and I didn't entirely know why. What happen...

I asked AI a question I'd been carrying around for years: am I going to be okay in retirement? Not a generic question — I gave it real scenarios, honest fears, and a budget. What I got back wasn't a magic answer. It was something more useful: clarity. The Question Behind the Question I've done the responsible things. Consistent 401k contributions, a Roth IRA, emergency savings, and now a job that...

Someone said to me recently: you have the most interesting conversations with AI. And I thought about it, and I think they’re right. I have questions I’ve been carrying for years — things that felt too small to research, too specific to Google, too embarrassing to ask out loud. The recipe that never quite worked. The winter I remembered as a kid that was somehow worse than all the others. A Duran...

You didn’t miss the AI revolution. You’ve been living in it for decades — you just didn’t have a name for it. In this episode of Small Steps with AI, we trace the AI you’ve already been using your whole life: the recommendation engines, the spam filters, the fraud alerts, the predictive text — and explain what actually changed when AI learned to have a conversation. This episode covers how AI has...

I have written emails at two in the morning that I never sent. I have drafted letters in my head during a long drive and then sat down at my keyboard and couldn't get a single sentence right. Writing has always been the place where I get stuck — not because I don't know what I want to say, but because I can't seem to say it the right way. Too much Jill in it. Too much heat, too much history, too m...

I bought a refurbished slush machine. No instructions. And what happened next turned into one of the best examples I’ve had of what AI actually is — not a magic answer machine, but a thinking partner who helps you work a problem all the way to a real conclusion. This episode is the full story: the curiosity, the chemistry lesson, the recipes, the failures, the controlled test, and the moment I fin...

Sam Altman says people saying please and thank you to ChatGPT costs OpenAI tens of millions of dollars in electricity. His response? “Well spent — you never know.” I agree with him. In Episode 4 of Small Steps with AI, I make the case for why courtesy to AI matters — and it has nothing to do with AI’s feelings. The Sam Altman Quote When a user asked how much OpenAI had lost to polite prompts, Altm...

You've been navigating unreliable information on the internet for years — you just didn't call it a skill. Checking sources, wondering about agenda, noticing when something sounds off. AI needs exactly that same kind of healthy skepticism: not paranoia, not blind trust, but the same reasonable caution you already bring to anything online. In this episode, we break down the most common ways AI gets...

Most people who try AI and find it unhelpful are having the wrong kind of conversation. They're typing in quick searches the same way they used Google, getting generic answers, and deciding the technology is overrated. It's not overrated. It's responding to what it was given. Four skills change that immediately — and they can be tried right now. Give It Context AI starts from zero every time unles...

I didn't expect AI to make me cry. Not from frustration — from something it said that was so unexpectedly right that it stopped me cold. That moment is where this show begins, and it's exactly the kind of thing we're going to explore together: the small, practical, and sometimes surprisingly personal ways that AI can show up in ordinary life. From Search Engine to Something More Like a lot of peop...