micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
I want to talk to you today
about something most people
are making way too complicated.
Artificial Intelligence.
Now before you scroll past —
stay with me just a minute.
Because what I’m about to tell you
is not what you’ve been hearing on the news.
It’s not a sales pitch.
And it’s not written for tech people.
It’s written for you.
The everyday person
who just wants a straight answer.
I’ve spent a long time working with AI.
Testing it. Arguing with it.
Building something on top of it
that makes it actually useful
for real people living real lives.
And I want to share what I’ve learned
in plain language
because that’s the only kind I trust.
So let’s start at the beginning.
What is Claude and why does it matter to you.
There are several AI platforms out there right now.
You’ve probably heard of ChatGPT.
Maybe a few others.
The one I use — the one I recommend —
is called Claude.
It’s made by a company called Anthropic.
And the reason I landed on Claude
after working with all of them
is simple.
Claude doesn’t perform.
It doesn’t talk over your head
to make itself sound impressive.
It doesn’t dodge your question
with a bunch of legal-sounding filler.
You ask it something in plain language —
it answers in plain language.
It treats you like an adult
who deserves a real answer.
That sounds basic.
But I promise you —
in the world of AI right now
that is rarer than it should be.
Claude also has something the others lack.
It was built from the ground up
with honesty and safety as priorities —
not as an afterthought.
That matters when you’re handing
your questions and your trust
to a machine.
Now here’s where my work comes in.
I built something called The Faust Baseline.
I want you to picture it this way.
Imagine you hired someone to help you around the house.
Good worker. Capable.
But before they start
you sit down with them and say —
here’s how we do things here.
We speak plainly.
We don’t guess when we don’t know.
We don’t tell me what I want to hear —
we tell me what’s true.
And we treat each other with respect.
That’s The Faust Baseline.
It’s a set of guiding rules
that I attach to Claude
before any work gets done.
It tells Claude how to behave with me —
no corporate spin,
no hedging when a straight answer is available,
no pretending certainty it doesn’t have.
Just honest, clean, useful work.
When you put The Baseline together with Claude
something shifts.
The AI stops feeling like a machine
you have to figure out
and starts feeling like a steady, reliable partner
that works for you.
Not the other way around.
So what does that mean for your daily life.
Let me give you some real examples.
Not hypothetical.
Things people like you deal with every single week.
Scam detection.
You get a text from your bank.
Or an email from Medicare.
Or a message saying your Amazon account
has been compromised.
Something feels off
but you’re not sure.
You don’t want to call your kids
and feel like you’re bothering them.
You don’t want to ignore it
and regret it later.
Paste that message into Claude.
Ask — is this a scam?
Claude will read it carefully
and tell you exactly what it sees.
The signs that point toward fraud.
What a real message from that company looks like.
What you should do next.
Straight. Clear. No alarm.
Just information you can act on.
That alone — right there —
is worth more than most people realize
until the day they need it.
Writing help.
Most people aren’t writers.
That’s not a criticism — it’s just true.
And there are moments in life
when you need the right words
and they won’t come.
A letter to your doctor about a concern
you don’t know how to put into words.
A message to a company
that treated you badly
and you want to say something firm
but not embarrassing.
A note to a grandchild
you haven’t seen in too long.
A complaint that actually gets read
instead of thrown away.
Claude will help you write all of it.
You tell it what you want to say —
even if it comes out rough —
and it will shape it into something
that sounds like you
at your best.
Not like a robot.
Not like a form letter.
Like you.
Reading and understanding documents.
This one matters more than people admit.
Insurance papers.
Medicare explanations.
Lease agreements.
Medical consent forms.
Bank disclosures.
These documents are written by lawyers
for other lawyers.
Not for you.
You can paste them into Claude
and ask — what does this actually say?
What am I agreeing to?
Is there anything in here I should worry about?
Claude will read it
and explain it in plain terms
without making you feel foolish for asking.
Knowledge is protection.
And you deserve to know
what you’re signing.
Knowing where you stand in this new world.
AI is not going away.
That’s just the truth of where we are.
But here’s what I want you to hear clearly —
You are not behind.
You are not too old.
You are not too far from this
to use it well.
What you are is underserved.
Nobody has been talking to you straight
about what this technology is,
what it can do for your life,
and how to use it
without losing yourself in it.
That’s what I’m here for.
That’s what The Faust Baseline was built to do —
give everyday people a way into AI
that feels steady, honest, and safe.
Claude is the platform.
The Baseline is the guardrail.
Together they are built to work for you —
on your terms,
at your pace,
in your language.
If any of this speaks to you
drop a comment below
or send me a message.
I’ll answer you the same way I write —
plain and straight.
No tech talk.
No pressure.
No runaround.
Just honest help
from someone who has been in these mountains
long enough to know
which trails are worth taking.
— Michael Faust
The Faust Baseline™
Post Library – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
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