In this article, using Tsuyoshi Ushio’s book ‘AI as a Subordinate: The Evolution Techniques of World-Class Engineers’ (Bungeishunju) as a guide, I will organize the reasons why content creation stalls even when using AI, and provide solutions. You will take away a system for content creation that prevents brain fatigue and practical judgment criteria, positioning AI not as a ‘convenient tool’ but as a ‘subordinate,’ allowing humans to focus on customer understanding and intervention points.
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When you ask AI to ‘write a blog post,’ it can fill your screen with thousands of characters of impressive text in just a few seconds.
However, have you ever felt exhausted while reading that perfect, long text and quietly closed the browser tab?
It is an ironic phenomenon that even though you used AI to reduce your workload, you end up spending more time on overtime, chasing down proofreading and fact-checking the text it returned.
Sighing and thinking, ‘It might have been faster to write this myself,’ is a major pitfall in modern AI utilization.
I am Tsuyoshi Watataru of Netarie. I support small business note creation.
In this series, ‘Small Business Notes from Business Books,’ I think about hints for small businesses and content creation from a single book.
This time, I will take up Tsuyoshi Ushio’s book, ‘AI as a Subordinate: The Evolution Techniques of World-Class Engineers’ (Bungeishunju).
I will think about how to run content creation without strain, from the perspective of managing AI as a ‘subordinate’ and designing where humans should intervene.
â ‘AI as a Subordinate: The Evolution Techniques of World-Class Engineers’ (Bungeishunju)
It is tiring to leave everything to AI. The perspective of seeing it as a ‘subordinate’ rather than a ‘tool’
The biggest reason why using AI is tiring is that you view AI as a ‘magic tool that does everything’ and try to dump all your work on it.
If you have it output text without deciding on the points where humans should intervene, the burden of checking and correcting will all bounce back to you.
In this book, the author argues that AI should be viewed not as a mere tool, but as a ‘member (subordinate) who works with you.’
No boss would dump work on a new employee who is talented but doesn’t know the context of the field and then just leave them to it.
The exact same structure is happening in content creation tasks.
I organized this in this article before.
â Before delegating work to AI, are you also handing over your own judgment?
If you order it to ‘write a good article’ while your instructions are vague, the subordinate will submit a large amount of safe, general arguments.
As a result, you, the boss, are chased by a massive amount of correction work and exhaust your energy for making judgments.
Why skipping ‘understanding’ leads to shallow articles
The reason AI output often feels shallow and fails to resonate with anyone is that the creator themselves has skipped the step of ‘understanding’ the customer’s pain points.
The root cause is not a lack of prompting technique, but rather the human failing to digest the context.
The author cites the depth of ‘understanding’ as a common trait among engineers who effectively master generative AI.
It is the attitude of not rushing to use AI results as they are, but rather understanding what they mean and digesting them as one’s own knowledge.
In content creation, what humans need to understand is not the AI’s algorithm, but ‘what the customer in front of them is struggling with.’
Unless the person themselves understands primary informationâsuch as conversations held in the field, the specific words used by those seeking advice, and past failuresâthey cannot provide the AI with appropriate prerequisites.
As mentioned in this article, the true nature of shallow writing is the lack of primary information.
â The reason why having AI write about your company’s strengths results in generic content is a lack of ‘primary information’
You, being in the field, are the one who knows the customer’s troubles best.
Only by sharing that understanding with the AI can your AI subordinate create accurate drafts.
Preventing brain fatigue: Designing tasks for AI subordinates and ‘intervention points’ for humans
The key to long-term content creation is to pre-design which tasks to delegate to your AI subordinate and which ‘intervention points’ you, as the human, will take responsibility for.
Stop getting involved in every single step and decide in advance where you will make the final judgment.
This book emphasizes management designâdeciding where humans should intervene and where they should make decisions.
For small business content creation, the most efficient way to divide roles and boundaries is as follows:
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Tasks to delegate to AI subordinates: Researching and summarizing related information, creating draft outlines, expanding drafts, and proofreading for typos and omissions.
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Intervention points for humans (supervisors): Selecting whose troubles to address, adding the firm’s unique perspective, and making the final decision to publish.
Based on this division of labor, actual content creation proceeds in the following three steps:
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Providing premises and questions (Human): Passing the raw context of ‘a client asked me this question today’ to the AI.
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Have it create a draft (AI): Based on the context provided, have the AI create an objective explanation of the system or a structural outline.
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Add your perspective and approve (Human): Add one line of judgment to the finished draft saying ‘This is how I think about it’ and approve it for publication.
Leave the manual labor to your subordinate, and focus yourself only on the final decision-making.
By adopting this mindset, you can dramatically reduce the mental fatigue associated with content creation.
Do not try to manage everything perfectly. Try things out on a small scale with the premise of ‘failing fast’.
When using AI as a subordinate, what is important is not to demand 100% perfect output from the start.
Rather than agonizing over long, complex instructions to get a perfect article in one go, it is much faster to try things on a small scale and make adjustments along the way.
The ‘fail fast, fix fast’ attitude that the author cultivated in the field of agile development is just as applicable in the field of content creation.
Instead of trying to complete it in one instruction, gradually improve the accuracy of the article by going back and forth with two or three short exchanges.
If you feel like it’s ‘a bit off,’ don’t reject it entirely and rewrite it yourself; instead, give short, additional instructions like ‘make it more from the consultant’s perspective’ or ‘simplify this technical term.’
By engaging in dialogue as if you were training a subordinate, the AI will come to reflect your intentions more accurately.
Let go of perfectionism, have it quickly create a 60% draft, and then have a human add the finishing touches.
Repeating these light experiments will become a reliable driving force to keep you creating content even during busy days.
From the consultations and questions you received today, try to think of just one point that a customer was struggling with.
Then, try asking your AI subordinate, ‘Give me three angles for an article aimed at people who are troubled by this.’
That small act of giving instructions will be the first step in freeing you from the exhaustion of content creation.
Other articles in this series are collected in this magazine.
â Small business notes thinking from business books
Thank you for reading.
The philosophy behind how Tsuyoshi Watadaru supports content creation and article production is summarized here.
â Reachable via search and conveying personality. Note content creation support for small businesses provided by “Netarie”
[About production]
This article uses AI as an assistant for drafting and organizing, based on notes and structural guidelines by Tsuyoshi Watadaru. Tsuyoshi Watadaru makes the final decisions on what content to keep, what to cut, and whether to publish.
A list of services and the latest information are summarized on the official website.
â Netarie Official Website
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