Don't Use AI. Work With It.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a piece featuring Joshua Wöhle as "the first 100x human I know." (Half-joking. Mostly to be provocative.) I expected to get pushback, but not the kind I got. I figured folks might bristle at the word "first" — surely many readers might think they should be in the photo.
That's not what happened.
The pushback came back hot on a different word entirely: 100x. And it didn't come from people who couldn't do it. It came from people questioning whether anyone should.
Dr. Susanne Friese — founder of Qeludra, a qualitative research firm — wrote me a long, sharp note. She wasn't a beginner. She was someone who'd already done the work. And she had four substantive objections, none of which were about her own capability:
"Plus what you do not mention at all are the costs. Running 27 agents — how many tokens is he going through per day?"
"Is it necessary to ship 500 features (just to say a number) per month? They do, just because it is possible? A bit of human reflection in between might not be a bad thing after all."
"His style of working is surely not the gold new standard you make it look like."
I read that last sentence three times, and shared it with Josh — who immediately replied, "We have that exact discussion internally." (And then I sat with both of their notes for a while.)
Because Susanne wasn't really objecting to AI. She was objecting to Josh's life being held up as the destination. The math didn't bother her. The math was fine. What bothered her was the implication underneath: this is what good looks like now. Reach for it, or be left behind. And what Josh's reply revealed is that he's wrestling with the same question — from inside the very life Susanne was critiquing.
Susanne's note was sharp. Other notes were the opposite. "I'd love for you to profile me — I'm doing 101x in [my field]." and "This is exactly the thing I keep trying to get my team to see." Same piece sparked polar opposite reactions. Which is what interested me most. Not that I got pushback. That the pushback and the enthusiasm were running on the same word.
That's the same week Reese Witherspoon posted her now-3-million-view smoothie video about the women in her book club: "How many of you guys use AI?" Three out of ten. "If three out of ten women are the only ones using AI, that means 70 percent of that group is not keeping up."
I tracked the comments with interest. Reese got the same kind of polarized reaction I did. Some celebrated her — Kerry Washington, agents, fellow founders. Many others — especially women authors — pushed back hard. Bestselling novelist Alix Harrow's comment, which still gets quoted in screenshots: "personally, I'm extremely proud of 7 out of 10 women 💕."
Now read those two reactions next to each other. Susanne's "his style is surely not the gold new standard." Alix Harrow's "I'm extremely proud of 7 out of 10 women." (They're saying the same thing.)
Neither one is a beginner. Neither one is afraid of the technology. (I had to actually examine this — it would be much easier for me to wave my hands and say "they'll come around." But it’s not that simple. They're not stuck. They're not behind. They're standing in front of the destination being implied and saying no thanks.) Both are saying: don't tell me the destination is settled. Don't tell me Josh's life is the goal. Don't tell me 10-out-of-10 is the goal. Don't tell me what kind of human I'm supposed to become.
And they have a point.
The fault line under both
When AI advocates pitch capability — look how productive Josh is, look how many women aren't keeping up — we're implicitly setting a destination. Be like this. Reach for this. Don't fall behind on the way to this. And we keep getting confused when the reaction comes back on values instead of logistics. We pitch harder. We add more receipts. We make the comparisons starker. Which makes the resistance louder, because we're not addressing what's actually being objected to.
Here's what I realized re-reading both Susanne's email reply and Alix Harrow's Instagram comment: people aren't rejecting AI. They're rejecting the assumption that someone else has set the bar. (Including, frankly, when I do it. Which I just did.)
This is where the word "use" does a lot of damage that nobody clocks.
"Use" is a transactional word. It implies a fixed object and a settled purpose. Use a hammer. Use a calculator. Use the car. The thing exists; the way to use it is established; the only question is whether you do or don't. When you ask "do you use AI?", you're not just asking about a behavior. You're embedding a frame: the destination is decided, you're either on board or you're not.
That frame is what people are reacting to. Not the technology. The frame.
A better question
Here's the reframe that's been sitting at the center of everything I do for the past two years: don't ask whether you "use" AI. Ask whether you're "working with" it.
It sounds small. It's not.
"Use" lets the destination stay invisible. "Work with" makes the destination yours. What are you trying to do? Who do you want to become? What kind of relationship do you want with this thing? Those questions belong to you, not to me, not to Reese, not to Josh, and definitely not to anyone telling you that you're behind.
In my research, the difference between people who underperform with AI and people who outperform with AI maps almost cleanly onto this distinction. Underperformers treat AI like a tool — I'll see if it can do this thing for me. Star performers treat AI like a teammate — let me bring this whole problem to a partner who can think with me. Same tech. Different relationship. Wildly different outcomes.
And — this is the part that matters for the Reese moment — the teammate framing is the only frame that survives the values objection. Because when AI is your teammate, the destination isn't preset. You bring it. Susanne's not wrong that 500 features a month isn't obviously a good thing. (I'd add: probably it isn't.) But that's a question about what you choose to do together, not about whether AI is something you should engage with at all.
About that third question…
Susanne's sharpest line — "is it necessary to ship 500 features just because it's possible?" — is one I don't have a clean answer to. (And I'm not going to pretend I do.)
I've spent a lot of words wrestling with this exact question publicly. Are You More of What You Value? was about almost trading a family trip for two business opportunities — and realizing the math of AI productivity made the trade more tempting, not less. The Rising Opportunity Cost of Being Human was about how when your output is 100x, choosing dinner with your wife costs 100 units instead of 1 — and what that does to your nervous system at 8pm.
I don't think Susanne and I disagree. I think we're standing in different parts of the same conversation. Yes, AI lets you do extraordinary things. And the most important question isn't whether you can — it's whether you should, and at what cost, and for what end. The advocates who skip past those questions are the ones who get the values backlash. (Including me. Last week.)
Why this matters specifically for Reese
I'm a father of four daughters. So I have a vested interest in how this conversation gets shaped — they're growing up in a world where the question "what's my relationship with AI?" will shape more of their adult lives than almost anything else.
Reese has 30 million followers. Most of them are women. Most of them are book lovers — which is to say, people whose relationship with words and ideas and craft is not negotiable. The "use AI" framing crushes that audience. It triggers exactly the values objection that lit up her comments. The "work with AI" framing is the only one that gives that audience a real way in — because it doesn't ask them to abandon what they care about. It asks them to bring it.
That's why I made a short video for Reese offering to help. Not to pitch her audience harder. To help her change the conversation so the people pushing back — the Susannes, the Alix Harrows — get an actual answer instead of more capability talk.
What you can do (if this resonates)
I'd love your help getting this conversation in front of her. (Real talk? I have no idea if it'll work. But I think it's worth a try.)
Here's the easy version:
1. Go to my Instagram post. Watch it if you haven't.
2. Leave one respectful comment tagging @reesewitherspoon. Something like:
@reesewitherspoon Jeremy's "work with AI, don't just use AI" frame feels like the bridge your audience needs. Would love to see you two help people move from fear to fluency.
3. Make it your own. A sentence about why this matters to you — as a parent, a leader, a teacher, a creative — does more than any template I could write.
Please don't spam. Please don't argue with critics. Just add a warm signal if you believe this conversation matters. That last part is non-negotiable. The point is to model the better posture, not to win the comments section.
One more thing
Reese asked an urgent question. She deserves credit for that — it's the kind of question most celebrities won't go near. 7 out of 10. Are we keeping up? Should we be?
There's a more useful one underneath it.
Not do you use AI? — but are you working with it? Different question. Different relationship. Different conversation.
Related: You're Not Tired of AI. You're Scared of It.
Related: This Is What Real Augmentation Looks Like (the Josh Wöhle piece)
Related: Are You More of What You Value?
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