AI Usage Typology: Why One User Calls Himself a “Fisherman”

Summary

An essay based on the author’s hands-on enterprise experience proposes “Fisherman” as an alternative to the familiar Centaur-versus-Cyborg framing of AI use. The author initially favored the Centaur pattern: writing long, context-rich prompts and letting AI produce a near-complete result. For narrower tasks, complex systems, dashboards, or detailed UX work, the author shifts toward the Cyborg pattern, giving precise, surgical instructions. Broad prompting helps surface ideas and establish project context, while narrow prompting can generate creative solutions under tighter constraints; the latter can also lead to unnecessary feature and design rabbit holes. The Fisherman metaphor combines both approaches: cast a wide net at the start of a project, then narrow the cast to pursue a specific result. The author defines the practical goal as ideating, creating, iterating, implementing, and making an impact, while emphasizing that the typology is personal and is not presented as a right-or-wrong classification.