Forget Collaboration—Why You Should Fight With AI
Weekly AI Reboot: straight talk, smart ideas, stuff worth knowing—#43
I write about leadership, education and AI, with a focus on why critical thinking about technology matters more than ever.
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Back in the 90s, I spent hours in the bookstore lingering in the self-help section. Remember when there was a bookstore on practically every corner? At the time, I thought they were really helping me and giving me the answers I thought I was missing. Looking back, I was mostly getting explanations that sounded useful but didn’t change much of anything.
Self-help books landed in this weird middle space, especially back then. They were academic but not quite enough, so the erudite crowd tended to dismiss them. They also weren’t practical enough for people to actually do anything with or truly fix what might be going on.
Most consisted of generic information packaged in a way people could nod along and think, oh yeah, that’s me: fear of failure, perfectionism, people pleasing, inner child wounds, negative self-talk, co-dependence, use I statements. It felt like you were solving a problem in real time, but you really weren’t.
When the answers don’t fit
Fast forward a few decades and AI explodes onto the internet. Everybody begins arguing over how to use it, and one of the biggest fears: outsourcing our thinking. To be fair, that’s a completely valid worry. But there’s another angle to this where you can actually increase your thinking - quite dramatically. And it’s not done by creating frameworks, certainty, or step-by-step guides.
That’s the opposite of creating thinking by the way. That’s literally the definition of outsourcing it.
Circling back to the self-help era I mentioned at the beginning, because there really is a through line here. You all know I use AI in all kinds of ways, from productivity to help with writing to using it to help me with my business. But I also use it as a temperature check. When I feel stuck, when something is bugging me, when I’m irritated and don’t quite know why, I don’t reach for a self-help book anymore. They never really helped that much anyway. Instead, I open ChatGPT and start asking questions.
Okay, here’s what I’m experiencing. What’s going on? I can’t finish this project. I’m struggling here. I feel irritated.
Sometimes it spits back the traditional answers: fear, perfectionism, avoidance. The same old stuff I used to get from all those books. So I’ll push back, saying, no, that’s not it. It’s more like XYZ. Then it gives me something else. Again, I’m like, no, that’s not it either. And then I start digging, naming the feelings, and talking about the image or a specific incident that comes up.
That right there is the metacognitive process that we’ve been hearing so much about as of late. That’s what it actually looks like.
The AI reflects things back to me right at the moment I’m experiencing whatever it is, where I can watch my thinking develop in real time. It takes pieces I couldn’t quite put together on my own and mirrors them in a way I can see and feel what’s actually happening.
And all of a sudden, I have breakthroughs, a-ha moments, and words for things I couldn’t actually name before.
In essence, you have to understand yourself enough to keep the machine hunting for, or predicting, the precise vocabulary of what you’re experiencing. When you force the AI to explain exactly why it’s wrong, that’s when you start wiping the fog from your own glasses and begin to see more clearly.
Agreement isn’t the goal
And now how this relates to AI. I’m starting to see the same reality play out there. You have people coming up with elaborate systems, prompts, how-to structures, and step-by-step ways to do things, and they’re great. Some of them are incredibly useful.
I even have my own conceptual model for my literacy program.
But the thing about frameworks is that they allow you to look at it, nod along, and not really challenge your thought process. Prompts are plug-ins. Here, do this. Everybody is talking about metacognition right now, but then they give templates and blueprints that actually do the opposite.
Think about that. It’s the difference between tell me how to do it, show me how to do it, and give me the road map that helps me figure it out for myself. One gives answers. The other helps you notice your own thinking while it’s happening.
Self-help books gave me something to nod at. AI gives me something to argue with. And that’s where the thinking starts. That’s how you keep from outsourcing your brain, even while everyone worries that’s exactly what AI will make us do.
Now go argue with your AI, because that’s the point.
Welcome to The Spotlight Corner 📢
I recently joined Craig Van Slyke and Dr. Robert Crossler on the AI Goes to College podcast. We got into AI literacy, where things stand right now, my Socratic way of working with AI, and that ongoing tension between using these tools well and handing over your thinking.
If you’re an educator, a parent, or just trying to make sense of all this, you’ll probably find something useful in the conversation.
Craig also recently wrote an article called A Winter Storm, Cajun Engineering, and the AI Skill We Should Be Teaching. It actually lines up almost perfectly with what I’m writing about in this Weekly Reboot. He describes working through a real problem during a winter storm by going back and forth with Gemini, iterating, adjusting, and thinking through the situation rather than just asking for answers, which helped him find a creative solution he probably wouldn’t have come up with on his own.
And by the end, I’d argue he wasn’t just using Gemini. He was actually arguing with it.
📌 Still thinking about arguing with AITech Toolbox: Tools I’m Loving Right Now 🛠
My favorite tech tool this month: Strikingly 🌐
Strikingly is one of those website builders most people don’t know about, but probably should.
I’ve been using it for a few years now after initially switching over from GoDaddy. The original reason was simple. Strikingly cost less. But the real reason I stayed is that it gave me more creative control without turning website updates into a part-time job.
For what I need, it hits a sweet spot. It’s easy to plug things in, move sections around, and keep the site looking fresh without needing to understand code. I can offer digital downloads, and even sell physical products if I ever decide to. Embedding videos is straightforward. Adding images and text doesn’t feel like a wrestling match.
Do you get total, unlimited control over every tiny detail? No. But for a small business owner or someone who wants a clean, functional website without constant technical headaches, it’s been a great fit.
I’ve genuinely been very happy with it and would strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a website.
Want to see Strikingly in action? My website is built on it, so take a look around. And if you decide to sign up, feel free to use the my Affiliate Link 😊
The best dictation tool I’ve used ⤵
Wispr Flow Referral Link: wisprflow.ai/r/WISPR6911.
(You get a $15 credit once you hit 2,000 words! Trust me when I tell you that will happen quickly once you get hooked on this thing).
In Case You Missed It! 🔙
👉 My previous posts 📝to check out:
➠ Weekly Reboot: What Anthropic’s Super Bowl Moment Means for Classrooms–And No, It’s Not About Football
➠ We Keep Asking the Wrong AI Questions When it Comes to Education
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And until next week, “Don’t forget to lead with purpose in everything you do.”
© 2026 Bette A. Ludwig: All rights reserved
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The metacognition piece is exactly what keeps me coming back to AI. I often use it less as a collaborator and more as a thinking foil — sometimes even pitting one system against another in a push/pull/push to stress-test ideas, surface assumptions, or tease out my own bias.
What sometimes starts out looking like procrastination turns into something else entirely. A spark appears, a question sharpens, or a pattern I couldn’t quite name comes into view.
It’s the same kind of exploratory thinking I used to offload onto patient friends, colleagues, or my spouse — except AI is always there in the moment, ready to mirror, challenge, and keep digging. The value isn’t agreement. It’s the friction. That’s where the thinking actually happens.