Building Better Relationships With AI Tools

Get practical advice on building a healthy working relationship with artificial intelligence (AI) tools. In a new episode of The Real BS About AI podcast, hosts Alethea Inns and Bob Soulliere explain that AI works best when users set boundaries, give clear instructions, and understand its limitations.

“AI is a powerful tool, but it’s still just a tool,” Soulliere said about ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and other platforms. “How well it works depends a lot on what you put into it.”

Set Boundaries 
One of the biggest takeaways from the episode is to tell your AI exactly what you want and what you don’t want.

As a Ph.D. student, Inns prompts AI not to write her papers. Instead, she uses AI as a tutor to explain ideas or provide feedback. She also customizes how AI responds for school and work, keeping interactions professional without sharing personal details.

Understand Limitations 
AI tools can only retain so much information at once. When a chat gets too long, the system may forget earlier details or make mistakes.

Clear instructions can help prevent that. Vague prompts often lead to ambiguous answers. Specific, detailed directions produce better results, the hosts discussed.

If a tool isn’t responding as expected, users can switch to another tool or start a new chat to clear the clutter.

“If I’ve tried something three times and it’s still stuck, I just start a new thread. It’s amazing how doing something as simple as that will reset your experience,” Soulliere said.

Use Projects and Gems
The episode highlights features like Projects in ChatGPT and Gems in Gemini Pro. Users can program these customizable workspaces to remember detailed instructions for recurring tasks and save them time.

Inns shared that a colleague created a Gem for a knowledge base article template and shared it across campus. When used, it generates clean HTML code for the article and image descriptions that support accessibility standards.

Accessibility Deadline Ahead
The hosts also reminded listeners that by April 2026, organizations the size of UNLV must ensure digital content meets ADA accessibility standards.

Tools like Gemini Pro can help. With the right prompts, AI can review documents and presentations, add alt text, check heading structure, and improve indexing for screen readers.

A special podcast episode focused on accessibility is planned, with additional resources available to help campus users prepare.

The Real BS About AI publishes new episodes every two weeks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. It blends humor, accessibility, and practical advice to make AI approachable for the UNLV community. View the AI Technology webpage for more information about AI at UNLV.

Short on time? Grab The Afterwards, a quick read about the episode, complete with prompts and notes you can copy and paste for your own use and workflow.  

Content for this story was drawn directly from the podcast and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our communications team verifies all content for accuracy.