Metabolizing the Machine
Why we're translating AI documentation into creator language
I spent three hours last week reading Anthropic's prompt engineering guide.
It's good. Really good. Clear explanations, solid examples, well-structured. The kind of documentation that makes you appreciate a company that actually cares about teaching people to use their tools.
And yet.
When I finished, I realized something: almost none of the examples connected to how I actually work. The use cases were customer service bots, data extraction pipelines, classification systems. Enterprise problems. Developer problems.
Nothing about writing a newsletter that sounds like you. Nothing about researching a topic deeply and synthesizing it into something you can actually use. Nothing about building systems for the creative process.
That gap—between technical documentation and creator reality—is exactly why ID8Labs Academy exists.
The Digestion Problem
Here's what I've noticed about AI education right now.
The people building these tools are engineers. Brilliant engineers. They write documentation for other engineers. The examples assume you think in systems, that you already understand prompting primitives, that "few-shot learning" is obvious terminology.
But most people who could benefit from these tools aren't engineers. They're writers, content creators, indie makers, consultants, researchers. People who make things. People who learn by seeing something work in their world, not in the abstract.
The raw material is there. Anthropic publishes extensive guides. OpenAI has cookbooks. The information exists. But it's not digested.
It's like giving someone a medical textbook when they just want to know how to treat a headache.
What Metabolizing Actually Means
When I say we "metabolize" the source material, I mean something specific.
Take Anthropic's lesson on giving Claude a role. Their example might be something like: "You are a helpful assistant that classifies customer inquiries into categories."
Useful for a support team. Meaningless for a newsletter writer.
Here's what the same technique looks like metabolized for creators:
"You are my editor. You know my audience: independent creators building in public who value authenticity over polish. When I give you a draft, your job isn't to make it 'better' in some generic sense—it's to make it sound more like me on my best day."
Same underlying technique. Completely different application. The first is a job description. The second is a creative partnership.
That's the translation work. Taking the "what" and showing the "how it actually applies to your life."
The Academy Expansion
Today we launched an expanded Academy with a new course: Prompt Engineering for Creators.
It's built directly from Anthropic's materials—we're not reinventing the wheel. They did the hard work of identifying the 9 core techniques. What we've done is translate each one through the creator lens.
Every module includes:
- -The actual technique (credit where it's due)
- -2-3 real-world creator scenarios (how a writer uses it, how a content creator uses it, how an indie maker uses it)
- -Before/after prompt comparisons (see the difference with your own eyes)
- -Practice with your own content (not abstract exercises)
The course is free. All 9 modules. No paywall.
Why free? Because this is foundation work. You can't charge for the fundamentals when the whole point is to get more creators fluent in AI. The paid offerings come later, when you want to go deeper or need someone to build alongside you.
The Spectrum of Support
Here's something I've learned from running live training sessions: people learn in different ways.
Some want the self-paced material. Give them the course, they'll do the work, they'll figure it out. That's what the Academy provides.
Some want to learn by doing—but with guidance. They want someone in the room when they hit the inevitable "wait, why isn't this working?" moment. That's what our live training addresses.
And some don't want to learn at all. They want it built. "I understand what AI can do, I just don't have time to become an expert. Can you just build the system for me?" That's our implementation services.
All three are valid. The Academy is designed to serve the first group while creating pathways to the others.
What's Coming
This is the beginning, not the end.
The Prompt Engineering course covers the fundamentals. But fundamentals are just the foundation. Here's what's next:
More metabolized courses. There's a whole curriculum worth of Anthropic material waiting to be translated. Advanced prompting. Multi-turn conversations. Tool use. Each one deserves the creator treatment.
Creator-specific tracks. A prompt engineering course for writers looks different than one for video creators. The techniques overlap, but the applications diverge. We'll build specialized paths.
Live cohorts. Some of the best learning happens in groups. We're designing cohort-based experiences where creators learn together, share what works, build on each other's discoveries.
The build-with-you option. For creators who've gone through the courses and know what's possible—but want expert help implementing. Pair programming, but for AI workflows.
The Real Mission
I'll be honest about what this is.
I spent 20 years in film production learning how to build systems. Workflows that turn chaos into output. Processes that let small teams punch above their weight. I know what it's like to be a creator overwhelmed by possibility.
AI is the most powerful creative tool I've ever encountered. But it's also the most poorly translated. The gap between what's possible and what most creators can actually access is massive.
The Academy is my attempt to close that gap.
Not by dumbing things down. By making them real. By showing you what these techniques look like in the hands of someone who writes for a living, who creates content, who builds products without a CS degree.
If the courses work, you'll learn.
If they're not enough, we'll build with you.
Either way, you're not stuck translating documentation written for a different audience.
We're doing that work. So you can do yours.