# Make your agent stop cosplaying (ep. 3)

Posted 2026-10-21 · Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIg9XBUD5Es

> Make your agent stop cosplaying.

**The prior it challenges:** Telling a model to act like an expert makes it one

## Transcript

Rethink your priors.

This is part one of four in my mini series within a series, where I talk about an article I read by Felix Rieseberg, who works at Anthropic on Claude.

His post, How to be more ambitious, a tutorial for humans with models, had me shouting from the rooftops.

His starting point is that models don't get better evenly. They're astounding in some directions and inadequate in others.

So he splits ambition into four types. Speed is the same work in less time. He skips that one. Then there's altitude, where you aim at the outcome instead of the task. Depth, where you do the task the way a field-leading expert would. And range, where you pull in fields the task wouldn't normally touch.

This one is about depth. Their tools, their methods, and not just their vocabulary. His warning: tell a model to act like a professional, and it often switches vocabulary without switching methods.

That's what I try and push myself to do. If I'm not feeling a little sick about my goal, it probably isn't ambitious enough.

But here's the catch with agents. You have to make sure they aren't cosplaying.

So have them work out the tools, processes and paradigms of a given expert. And then verify it.

There are lots of spots to check against, and your agent can do that as part of its own verification loop. For example, it can check against the top recommended or most cited tool on r/photography, and why. Felix agrees: use an outside judge, and don't let the model grade itself.

Once that's abstracted, the agent can reason about how to do it for itself.

I did this for this show. Everything you're watching is computer drawn, not AI generated.

I knew I'd use MS Paint, so my agent first designed a version that works for agents on their Linux computer. It actually draws, via computer control.

Before the character sheets, I had my agent describe how an expert animator would plan a YouTube channel like mine, with my concept spelled out.

It fills in my own knowledge gaps, so I stop assuming what an expert would or wouldn't do or use.

It streamlines the entire process. And I get a reusable set of skills and tools for other use cases beyond this.

Next time, altitude.

Anyway. Start from the outcome. Or don't. I'm not your manager. Follow for more.

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Rethink your priors by Eduardo Martínez. AI implementation. Outcomes over tools. And everything else.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rethinkyourpriors · Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rethinkyourpriors/ · Work with Eduardo: https://edumartinez.ai/