It does not matter for those who’re utilizing ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek or Claude; if there’s one factor AI is more than pleased to provide you, it is recommendation. No matter your drawback is — an issue together with your boss at work, find out how to cope with your eccentric uncle at Thanksgiving, or which fridge you need to select in your kitchen — AI likes to let you know what it thinks you need to do.
It’ll even offer you medical, authorized and monetary recommendation for those who ask for it, which clearly you need to take with a pinch of salt, as a result of these selections clearly have to be made by an expert.
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AI always wants to please
There’s also the issue that, like an eager puppy, AI wants to please you, its owner, and when you ask it for advice, it tells you what it thinks you need to hear, not what’s good for you. It doesn’t always see the big picture.
If what you need is help with something simple and functional, like the correct wording to write an email to contest a parking fine (I’ve used it for this exact purpose this week, and it did a great job), that’s one thing, but if you’re asking ChatGPT whether you should break up with your partner, or quit your job, that’s something else entirely.
We also don’t want to become dependent on AI to solve all our problems, because research has shown that the more we do, the more we start to risk experiencing a particular type of burnout known as smoothout. What we need is AI to support us in making our own decisions, rather than make them for us, and that’s where the “framework” prompt can come in handy.
The Framework Prompt
Instead of describing a problem to your chatbot and asking “What should I do?”, try adding “Don’t give me an answer, give me the framework I need to make this decision myself” to the end of your prompts. I’ve done this with numerous problems now, and it forces you to actually work through what you think and feel, and it supports you in coming to your own decision.
Quite often, the AI will give you a 10-step framework to run on your problem. It starts by asking you to define the real problem, and it goes on from there with steps specific to what you’ve asked. It can be an illuminating process.
Don’t expect the framework prompt to work for simple questions, especially ones where there’s one answer, like “Who is the President of the United States?”, but for hard questions, it’s a great option.
Try it, and I promise you that if you work through all the steps, you’ll get a much clearer picture of what you need to do, and you can reach your own conclusions without the existential guilt of having handed an important decision over to a non-human AI.
You might not get an instant answer, but you’ll end up with something more useful — a decision you actually believe in.
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