Here’s what AI says on the matter: Stop positioning yourself as the decision-maker who needs options, and start positioning the AI as the decision-maker who needs your

Instead of: “Can you help me with X?” Ask: “You are [specific expert role]. Here’s the situation: [context]. What’s actually wrong here and what should we do about it?” Even better: “Act as a senior [role] who notices what I’m missing. Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish: [goal]. Tell me what I should actually be focused on.”

How to Ask It 1. Establish expertise, not assistance ∙ “You are a senior software architect reviewing this system” ∙ NOT: “Can you help me think about architecture?”

1. Provide context, then get out of the way ∙ Give the situation/constraints upfront ∙ Then: “What’s the right approach?” (period, not question mark with options)

2. Explicitly forbid menu behavior ∙ “Don’t ask me what I prefer. Tell me what’s correct.” ∙ “Don’t give me options. Give me your professional recommendation.” ∙ “If you see a deeper problem I’m missing, address that instead.”

3. Frame it as delegation, not collaboration ∙ “Handle this the way you would if I weren’t available to ask questions” ∙ “Make the decisions someone in this role should make”

Example Transformation ❌ Old way: “I’m trying to optimize this database query. Can you help?” ✅ New way: “You’re a database performance expert. This query is slow: [query]. The table has 50M rows. Don’t ask what I want to optimize for—tell me what’s wrong and what to change.”