The Forge: Learn Through a Bounded Task
A practical reflection on constraints, attention and learning through a small, testable task.
The framework · four published essays · free
Give AI better context. Keep your own judgment.
Notes from building with AI: how to frame a task, make your assumptions visible and check the result. These are practices to try and evaluate, not a guarantee of accuracy or a test of your personality.
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All four essays below are available without payment. Read in order or choose the question that interests you.
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The Mirror Principle: Examine the Brief and the Answer
Use the mirror as a writing metaphor: examine your instructions and check the response, without treating AI as a judge of your character.
Four Ways of Working with AI
Four ways of working with AI, from trying a prompt to maintaining a useful system. These are workflow examples, not personality rankings.
Staying Grounded While Working with AI
Ask for disagreement, inspect the evidence and pause before accepting a persuasive answer.
The rest is still in development
The original outline includes 16 additional modules. Those lessons are not published, so this page does not sell full access to that outline. Existing purchasers can contact travis@traviseric.com for help with their order.
How to use these ideas
Pick one task with a result you can check. Give the model the relevant facts, ask it to identify uncertainty, and compare its output with an independent source or test. A clear prompt can still produce an incorrect answer.
The separate introductory course lists its own lessons and access conditions. It is not the unpublished twenty-module outline.