Today, I’m happy to share a guest post with you from my friend
.Sam is a poet and professor based in Edinburgh, where he explores how language, creativity, and technology can bring communities together. He runs Slow AI, a newsletter and practice that encourages people to use AI reflectively rather than reactively, helping individuals and organisations build resilience instead of speed.
Ready to get inspired? 🧡 Let’s jump in.
In this post you will:
Stop rushing AI drafts that look polished but fail to land.
Start catching hidden assumptions and blind spots early.
Build deliberate pauses that make your work more resilient.
Most of the time, when people talk about AI, they talk about speed. Faster drafting. Faster workflows. Faster content.
But sometimes, speed is the wrong metric. In my work as a professor and writer, I have found that the most valuable use of AI is not acceleration, but reflection.
A Hard Lesson
I learned this the hard way. At the start of last year, I rushed out an article pitch using AI to help me hit a tight deadline. I sent it off quickly, pleased to have something polished. The reply came back fast too: a rejection, with a sting in the tail: they asked if AI had written it. The truth was not that the tool had failed, but that I had failed to pause. I had skipped reflection, and the result was flat, generic, forgettable.
What I realised in that moment was that speed alone does not guarantee value. A polished draft is useless if it lacks depth. The lesson was simple: I should have treated the tool as a thought partner, not a shortcut. What was missing was the same pause I ask of my students. A moment to step back, test assumptions, and look at the work from another angle. Without that pause, AI only amplified my haste. With it, the same tool could have become something quite different.
Reflection as a Skill
The shift for me was realising that reflection is not an abstract idea, but a practical skill. As an educator, I have built reflection into my practice for years; reviewing what worked in a class, what missed the mark, and what assumptions I carried in with me. If those techniques help me teach better, why not apply the same mindset to my use of AI? The same frameworks that sharpen learning can also sharpen how we work with our tools. That is where simple, repeatable exercises come in.
Reflection in Practice
Here is a simple 3-step exercise you can try the next time you use AI:
Step 1: Ask for assumptions
Take the AI’s answer and push back on it directly. Type: “What assumptions are you making in this response? Whose perspective might be missing?” This forces the tool to uncover the framing it has taken for granted and it shows you where you might be leaning on hidden biases.
Step 2: Reframe the question
Copy your original prompt. Then ask: “Give me three alternative ways to frame this same question.” Compare the results. Notice which angles you had overlooked. This exercise trains you to see blind spots and to recognise that the first way you phrased something is rarely the only way.
Step 3: Hold the pause
Before acting on the answer, resist the urge to run with it. Instead, type: “Generate three follow-up questions I should ask before I decide.” Do not rush to solutions. Let the tool slow you down. The goal is to create a deliberate pause, one that often saves you hours of correction later.
From Productivity Engine to Reflective Partner
These small shifts can completely change the role of AI in your work. Instead of treating it as a machine that churns out faster drafts, you begin to use it as a partner that slows you down, holds up a mirror, and helps you think more clearly. That change matters. Reflection saves you from wasted effort, improves the quality of your decisions, and builds resilience that speed alone cannot provide.
This is the heart of what I explore each week in Slow AI: how to create space for pause, attention, and better choices by working differently with the tools you already have.
Try the 3-step exercise this week on something small: a client email, a content draft, or a decision you are weighing up. Notice what happens when you let AI question you instead of racing ahead.
The advantage for soloists is not just speed, it is sustainability. While others burn out chasing the newest tool, you can build depth, clarity, and trust in the way you work. That is what will keep your business, and your creativity, resilient over the long run.
If you want more posts like these, make sure to subscribe to
and also to my publication, The AI Solist. As always, have fun and trust the process. 🙌 | A guest post by
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I’ve definitely been guilty of treating AI like a sprint partner — rushing to “done” instead of pausing to think. And just like you, the result usually looked fine on the surface but fell apart on a second read.
What’s helped me is reframing reflection as a system, not just a mindset. Building in tiny checkpoints — a pause to question assumptions, a quick lens shift before publishing — makes clarity less about luck and more about process.
I’ve been exploring this rhythm a lot in my Notes lately: how slowing down with intention actually makes consistency easier, not harder.
This concept of "slow AI" is brilliant, so often we get caught up in the race for speed. Using AI for reflection rather than just acceleration is a powerful perspective shift that can lead to more meaningful work.