If You Do Not Know the Destination, AI Cannot Choose the Road

There is a moment in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland where Alice asks which way she ought to go. The answer depends on where she wants to get to. If she does not know that, then "it doesn't matter which way you go."

That line has become a planning cliche because it is true. It is even more true with AI.

AI can produce options quickly. It can draft, summarize, code, compare, rephrase, and generate a dozen paths before lunch. But if the intent is unclear, speed becomes noise. You get more output, not more direction.

I see this most clearly in product work. A vague prompt creates a vague artifact. "Make this better" gives you something plausible. "Reduce the cognitive load for a first-time admin who needs to approve a request in under two minutes" gives you a direction. The difference is not the model. The difference is clarity.

This is why planning has become more important, not less. AI lowered the cost of execution. That means the expensive part is deciding what deserves to be executed.

A good plan does not need to be bureaucratic. It can be a simple HTML file, a one-page brief, a sketch, or a list of constraints. What matters is that it defines the destination: who we are designing for, what problem we are solving, what we are not solving, how success will be recognized, and what tradeoffs we accept.

AI is a multiplier. If the direction is clear, it multiplies momentum. If the direction is vague, it multiplies confusion.

The best prompts are not magic sentences. They are compressed planning. They contain a user, a situation, a goal, a constraint, and a definition of quality. That is why people who think clearly tend to get better results from AI. They are not better at tricks. They are better at intent.

Before asking AI to produce anything, I try to ask myself: what road am I asking it to help me travel? If I cannot answer that, the next step is not a better prompt. The next step is a better plan.

Sources

• Project Gutenberg: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland — for the Cheshire Cat reference.

— Victor