When to use AI and when not to
Some of what you ask a system to do needs judgement. The rest of it has a right answer. Those two want different machinery and they cost wildly different amounts. Telling them apart is most of the skill. This is the decision underneath Prompt engineering with Claude: not how to word the ask, but whether it should be an ask at all.
Say it another way
A kitchen runs on both. Someone has to taste the sauce and judge whether it needs another minute. No rule written down can do that for them. But nobody stands there judging whether the fridge is cold enough, because a thermometer answers that exactly, every time, for nothing. Knowing which jobs are a taste and which are a thermometer is what keeps a kitchen both good and affordable.
The two kinds of answer
A deterministic step gives the same answer every time. The two kinds of answer →
What each one costs
Cost is not one number. What each one costs →
A worked example: what the tools hand back
The clearest place this bites is the information your tools return. A worked example: what the tools hand back →
Which to reach for
It takes two questions, not one. Which to reach for →
Which model, once you have decided it is AI
Deciding a part of the job needs judgement leaves you one more choice: which model does it. Which model, once you have decided it is AI →
The wider set of decisions this sits inside is Prompt engineering with Claude. The craft around it is Working with Claude.