Watching People Experience Their AI Eureka Moment

On Wednesday, I attended Every’s “Claude Code for Beginners” workshop. The curriculum seemed basic to me, and I was a little bummed. Shouldn’t we show them the crazy, bleeding-edge stuff that just came out last week?

I was suffering from the curse of knowledge.

Having been in this space for so long, I’ve normalized away the magic. When ChatGPT 3.5 first came out and people were asking to do silly things like create Eminem rap songs in Old English, I was enthralled. AI finally hit an inflection point from theory to reality and my worldview flipped in an instant.

Then, I took it for granted.

As an AI trainer, I now focus on edge and corner cases. The magic moments still happen, but I expect them. It’s like watching a magician but knowing the trick. It kills the magic.

Still, every now and then I get to watch people experience their AI eureka moment, and it brings me right back.

Multiple people on the Zoom call shared, shaking their heads, saying they couldn’t believe they’d build something in minutes that would have taken weeks or months before.

Yes, these are just vibe-coded prototypes and not production-ready, but the empowerment these people felt to participate was a life-changing moment for many.

This summer, I remember sitting with my wife as she used ChatGPT for the first time. She resisted it until she needed it to solve a gnarly problem she was facing as a school teacher: how do I modify a set curriculum to a grade-appropriate difficulty from pre-K to 3rd grade?

This was a major undertaking, but as ChatGPT generated a comprehensive plan in under a minute, complete with changes, justifications, and cliff notes, her eyes widened.

Ultimately, she ended up going a different direction, but the experience changed her perception of AI’s potential.

I live for these moments when running trainings at Every. Last week, we had someone unlock a major pain point costing team members hours daily organizing schedules. Seeing their smiles and joy was soul-filling.

I hope we never lose the sense of wonder and magic about how AI can empower us to do more with less.