„I really like the term “context engineering” over prompt engineering…the art of providing all the context for the task to be plausibly solvable by the LLM..“
— Tobi Lutke
Welcome to the third AI Dispatch from Brand Studio Echt.
Each issue brings two things:
A practical prompt to try something new (YES). And a reminder of what makes us irreplaceably human (BUT).
YES
Context engineering over prompt engineering
People often talk about “prompt engineering,” but the real performance boost comes from context engineering: deliberately filling the model’s context window with the right mix of task details, examples, relevant data, history, and state. Too little context, and the model guesses. Too much (or irrelevant) context and quality drops while costs climb.
Good context engineering hits a precise balance. When done well, it makes AI more accurate, consistent, and useful. Far beyond what “smart prompts” alone can deliver.
👉 Andrej Karpathy about this topic in his tweet
BUT
How to Avoid Brain Rot by Thobias Van Schneider:
Stop chasing frictionless convenience. Accept some slowness and complexity in your life. Embrace manual effort to train your mind and body. It’s the only way to grow and retain personal agency.
Resist over-automation. Keep skills alive that a machine could easily replace, even if it’s inefficient. Cooking, writing, repairing, designing etc. Automate everything else if you don’t see value in it. But don’t just over-automate for the sake of it.
Value process over results. Find your meaning in the making, not just in the arriving. I know, so stupid. But the journey is the destination, never forget this. There’s no story to tell without hardship, no satisfaction without the journey.
Choose depth over speed, always. Read long-form articles or books and you’ll notice your mind slowly repairing itself. Build long projects, stick with something and don’t give up too easily. Train your patience. Don’t be scared of boredom.
Preserve human rituals. Long conversations that seem to go nowhere. Handwritten notes, physical exercise or craftsmanship. Those things bind the mind to the body, so to speak. Effort manifesting as form is a wonderful way to “feel yourself.”
Limit dependence on algorithms. Make your own decisions, do your own research, think for yourself. Don’t let algorithms choose your books, films or music. Reclaim unstructured browsing, wander off the “For You” path. I know, ironic.