Automated Productivity

Working alongside autonomous AI agents

Introduction:

Welcome to Automated Productivity. In this guide, we explore the unique challenges for knowledge workers (people who handle information as a significant part of their job), offering valuable recommendations to enhance productivity. From writers and researchers to designers, engineers and legal consultants, these workers handle data as a significant part of their jobs. This guide is aimed at knowledge workers across industries looking to enhance their productivity in practical ways.

In this guide, we delve deep into how AI assistance can be leveraged in daily tasks of a knowledge worker, focusing on three essential domains: passive assistance, active (hand-over) assistance, and embedded assistance. Our goal is to illuminate the path to seamless integration of automated productivity into your daily routines, especially in the context of knowledge work, since it is not easy to measure worker productivity. 

Introduction to Prompting and Prompt Design

Prompting involves providing context and instructions to AI systems to guide them in completing tasks. Well-designed prompts allow the AI to understand the specifics of what you need. There are many online environments that can be used for a prompt interface. Some popular examples include:

• Coral from Cohere - Good for providing context and referencing previous information

• Claude from Anthropic - Useful for asking responsible and research-based questions

• ChatCPT from OpenAI - General purpose, good for technical code snippets

• Bard from Google - Strong at providing internet-grounded content

How should you prompt, good prompting is all about establishing context. Some questions to consider when writing a prompt:
What is the agent you are interacting with

• resetting: what is the context and agent formulation

• setting: what is the prior knowledge we are taking into consideration

• instruction: what human-compatible AI environment are we using (is it destruction free) 

The anatomy of a prompt 

Automated Productivity

Automated productivity is a concept where an AI agent takes a human described task and helps achieve it through a well-defined environment. This process involves using AI systems to enhance and optimize productivity, for example the process can involve agents scanning tasks, collaborating with human workers in an agent-free environment, and providing real-time updates on task outcomes on daily work routines. The goal is to seamlessly integrate AI assistance into daily workflows to save time on routine tasks.

Working alongside AI as a collaborator can be done in a number of ways, such as:

• Passive assistance: The agent can provide suggestions or recommendations as you work. You can use AI to brainstorm ideas for articles, essays, or creative writing projects. For example, an autocomplete feature can suggest words or phrases as you type (advanced version can include sentiment analysis of phrases)

• Active(Hand-over) assistance: The agent can take over a task completely, and then hand it back to you when it is finished. This operates in an environment where you handle the task in a sandbox or separate application. For example, a voice assistant(like whisper, descript and otter) can transcribe a meeting for you (an advanced version can include retrieving structured data from a large file)

• Embedded assistance: The agent can be embedded in a tool or application, and provide assistance as you use it. Embedded assistance operates in an environment where the application has an AI agent as part of its functionality. For example, a tool like “Help Me Write” feature on Google Docs or Gmail can be used for word processing inside the application, a tool like Cursor can help developers use AI directly into their workflow. It can offer code suggestions, help in debugging by explaining errors, and even provide code snippets for specific tasks(advanced examples can include designing or developing an app along with an AI agent).

Different prompting styles( more advanced prompting techniques): 

Different prompt styles, such as zero-shot, few-shot, and interactive prompting, offer unique approaches to engaging with AI models. Zero-shot is suitable for general inquiries, few-shot is effective for context-specific questions with limited examples, and interactive prompting(chain-of-thought) is ideal for dynamic, iterative conversations requiring back-and-forth interactions with the model. Choosing the right style depends on the complexity of the task and the level of specificity needed in the responses, ensuring a tailored and effective interaction with the AI model.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Some common mistakes and how to steer clear of them, ensuring a smooth experience with automated productivity.

• Overly Complex Queries: Understand the balance between specificity and simplicity in your prompts to get the most accurate responses.

• Ignoring Context: Learn to provide adequate context in your prompts, enabling ChatGPT to understand your requirements fully.

• Overdependence: Discover how to use ChatGPT as a tool to enhance your productivity, not replace your skills and expertise. Remember, automated productivity is about hand-overs (between humans and artificial intelligence)

• Separation of Concerns

Tips for Integration

A simple way to integrate AI is using it in different contexts.  

• Customize Responses: As we have shown in the sections above. 

• Combine Features: Discover how to combine passive, active, and embedded assistance for complex tasks, maximizing efficiency. 

• Regularly Review and Update
  Use a tool like Orbit to get feedback on your tasks (eg. you can reset an AI agent to a reviewer).

• Use Augmentation: For more advanced users , you can try using ChatGPT with plugins or code interpreters, or Cohere’s Coral with RAG(retrieval-augmented generation) . 

Conclusion: Enhance Your Productivity!

The potential for AI to assist knowledge workers is vast, but it requires selecting the right techniques and integrating them effectively into your workflows. Start by identifying routine tasks that can benefit from passive assistance like autocomplete and recommendations. Look at opportunities to hand off clearly defined tasks to AI for active assistance(eg. repetitive tasks). And explore tools with embedded AI that can provide help within the applications you use daily.

With the right prompting approach and seamless integration, you can establish a complementary relationship between yourself and AI. While leveraging the strengths of automation for efficiency, continue using your expertise to make high-level decisions. Make it a habit to review AI's work and give feedback through preferences and examples to improve its performance over time. These principles of automated productivity can help streamline repetitive tasks, free up your time for creative thinking, and ultimately become more operational in your role.