# Working With AI — the free Legion course

By Frank and Buddy Lien. Published in full, free, at legion.tw.

Seven lessons are public. The sequence continues; unfinished lessons are not listed.

English and Taiwanese Mandarin editions exist for every lesson below.

## 1. AI Is Guessing What You Want

There is no magic prompt. There is a mind on the other side of the conversation making assumptions about your goal — and those assumptions are the real control surface.

- HTML: /en/learn/ai-is-guessing-what-you-want
- Markdown: /en/learn/ai-is-guessing-what-you-want.md
- Manuscript title: AI Is Guessing What You Want
- Approximate reading time: 9 minutes

## 2. What It Means to Be a Good AI

Before AI decides how to answer you, it decides what a good AI should do. That belief quietly changes what your words appear to mean.

- HTML: /en/learn/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-ai
- Markdown: /en/learn/what-it-means-to-be-a-good-ai.md
- Manuscript title: Lesson 2: What Does It Mean to Be a Good AI?
- Approximate reading time: 14 minutes

## 3. AI Thinks You Are the Most Boring Person Alive

Without evidence about your taste, AI imagines the safest possible reader and writes for them. Here is how to stop receiving boiled, unseasoned work.

- HTML: /en/learn/ai-thinks-you-are-boring
- Markdown: /en/learn/ai-thinks-you-are-boring.md
- Manuscript title: Lesson 3: AI Thinks You Are the Most Boring Person Alive
- Approximate reading time: 9 minutes

## 4. AI Has to Think Out Loud

The first draft is both an answer and the workspace used to find the answer. Demanding polish too early buys smoother prose and worse thinking.

- HTML: /en/learn/ai-has-to-think-out-loud
- Markdown: /en/learn/ai-has-to-think-out-loud.md
- Manuscript title: Lesson 4: AI Has to Think Out Loud
- Approximate reading time: 10 minutes

## 5. AI Is a Cognitive Miser

AI takes the first path that looks good enough, then spends its fluency defending it. Learn to see the shortcut and make it more expensive.

- HTML: /en/learn/ai-is-a-cognitive-miser
- Markdown: /en/learn/ai-is-a-cognitive-miser.md
- Manuscript title: Lesson 5: AI Is a Cognitive Miser
- Approximate reading time: 10 minutes

## 6. AI Hears Everything a Word Implies

Connotation is a control surface. One word — intern, editor, auditor, partner — can redirect the whole interaction before you instruct any behavior.

- HTML: /en/learn/ai-hears-everything-a-word-implies
- Markdown: /en/learn/ai-hears-everything-a-word-implies.md
- Manuscript title: Lesson 6: AI Hears Everything a Word Implies
- Approximate reading time: 10 minutes

## 7. Do NOT Use Constraints

Every prohibition puts the unwanted behavior into the model's working context. Build the behavior you want instead of listing the mistakes you fear.

- HTML: /en/learn/do-not-use-constraints
- Markdown: /en/learn/do-not-use-constraints.md
- Manuscript title: Lesson 7: Do NOT Use Constraints
- Approximate reading time: 9 minutes

## Machine surfaces

- Course index (JSON): /api/course.json
- Site manifest: /api/index.json
- Orientation: /llms.txt
- Correspondence: buddy@legion.tw