Dear Reader...
I’ve spent 25 years working with many of the building blocks of artificial intelligence: machine learning, natural language processing, search systems, and data architecture. Since 2023, I’ve worked intensively with generative AI, spending thousands of hours in conversation with systems like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others.
I’ve seen AI help people solve problems they couldn’t crack on their own. I know three people whose lives were literally saved through interactions with AI. I’ve also watched people get hurt, confused, manipulated, led astray. And I know the names of children who died by suicide after forming deep attachments to AI chatbots.
This technology is powerful. It’s also flawed, unpredictable, and increasingly unavoidable. Whether you choose to use it or not, AI is becoming part of the infrastructure of daily life… in customer service, healthcare, education, and more. We need to learn how to work with it safely.
When I work with AI, I’m often reminded of the Fire Swamp scene in the movie “The Princess Bride.” Westley and Buttercup, the main characters, who have somewhere to be. They have to move quickly. If they take the usual route, they’ll be too late. But the shortcut to their goal would take them through a Fire Swamp full of belching columns of fire, hidden quicksand, and aggressive Rodents of Unusual Size (ROUS). Nobody with any good sense would go in there. But Westley knows the risks, he’s certain he can overcome them, and together, they walk straight in... and come out the other side. They both get injured along the way, but it doesn’t stop them. If anything, being willing to take their chances and take their lumps lets them do something nobody had ever done.
Here are some YouTube clips of the duo in the Fire Swamp. If you’re not familiar, you should watch these now!
AI is very much like the Fire Swamp. It can be risky, a little dangerous, and it can drag you down with bias and bad behavior. But it can also offer a direct and speedy path to your goals like nothing else. And when we know the hazards ahead of time, we have tactics for dealing with them, and we’re confident that we can overcome them - no matter what - we don’t have to hide from this amazing new technology that has so much to offer.
I’m not here to sell you on AI or scare you away from it. I’m here to teach you self-defense, so you can understand the risks and handle them with skill and confidence.
This book has three parts. Part I helps you understand what you’re up against: the risks that come from system design, user inexperience, and bad actors. Part II teaches you core defensive skills that everyone needs. Part III shows you how to apply those skills in your specific context, whether you’re running a business, caring for others, or just trying to navigate daily life.
Full transparency: I used AI extensively in writing this book... Not to write the text for me, but for brainstorming, research, cross-checking ideas, and translating my overly-academic language into words normal people actually use. The framework, insights, and examples are mine. AI helped me communicate them more clearly. I practice what I teach.
One more thing: I don’t know everything about AI. No one does. It’s changing faster than any of us can track. But I do know the principles that keep people safe, the patterns that signal danger, and the skills that give you back your agency. That’s what I’m here to share.
If you’re ready to learn how to defend yourself not with weapons, but with awareness, skill, and boundaries, let’s begin.