The super-intern effect: How AI is teaching us to finally say what we mean
It turns out that the secret to mastering the "Manager of the Year" award wasn't an expensive MBA or a collection of leather-bound books on leadership. It was actually getting frustrated at a blinking cursor because you told an AI to "make it look professional" and it gave you a neon-pink slide deck with six fingers on every hand.
We are living through the world’s most expensive, high-stakes management seminar. AI doesn't have the social grace to pretend it understands your vague nonsense. It is a literalist to a fault. If you give it garbage, it serves you a gourmet garbage sandwich. This has forced us into a realization that is as painful as it is helpful: If the AI failed, it’s probably because you don't actually know what you want.
The Mirror of the Prompt
We are finally learning the art of the Functional Brief: providing context, constraints, and a clear definition of what "done" looks like. For years, managers have been guilty of the "Drive-By Delegation"—dropping a vague request like "I need a report on the thing by Tuesday" and then acting shocked when the result is a disaster.
If you can learn to delegate to a machine that has zero intuition, you’ll be a god at delegating to humans who actually have common sense.
The Level Playing Field (and the Middle Management Problem)
There is a beautiful, democratic irony here. Whether you’re a CEO or a college dropout with a laptop, we all have access to the same "Super-Intern." For the first time, the barrier to entry isn't just who you know; it’s how clearly you think.
And let’s be honest: this clarity might finally rid us of the traditional, bureaucratic middle-management layer that everyone loves to hate. You know the one—the layer that exists solely to "translate" a boss's vague grunt into a task, usually while adding three unnecessary Zoom calls to your calendar. If everyone can speak directly to a powerful tool with precision, we don't need a human telephone game. We can reclaim our time from the "Meeting People" and give it back to the "Doing Work" people.
The Test of Our Generation
However, we must tread carefully.
The Real Risk: AI is great for making us faster, but it’s a disaster when used as a cheap substitute for real human skill. If we use it to replace people rather than empower them, we end up with a world full of fast, cheap, and mediocre work. The real test will be how we adapt without ruining the livelihoods of those with the very skills we’re trying to "enhance."
Why This Matters
We should absolutely keep a healthy layer of skepticism toward AI. It’s a hall of mirrors, it’s prone to "hallucinations" (which is just a fancy tech word for lying), and it has the personality of a very eager-to-please vacuum cleaner.
But by learning to articulate our vision to a machine, we are inadvertently becoming better at communicating with humans. We are learning that:
Precision is kindness.
The tool is only as good as the mind directing it.
The goal isn't just to replace the worker; it's to replace the waste.
If it teaches us how to delegate with clarity and lead with intent, we might just come out of this as better bosses—both to our machines and to each other.
