What you’ll learn

Estimated time: 20 minutes

By the end of this lesson you’ll be able to:

• Define all four 4D competencies and how each shapes your AI collaborations
• Tell the inner loop from the outer loop and know when to apply each
• Map your current work to the 4Ds and find your biggest opportunity

The 4D Framework for AI Fluency

(7 minutes)

This video introduces the 4D Framework — Delegation, Description, Discernment, and Diligence — and explains how each competency applies to your daily work.

Key takeaways

• The inner loop (Description and Discernment) guides daily AI interactions. The outer loop (Delegation and Diligence) guides bigger decisions about when and how to use AI.
• Delegation means deciding what AI handles and what stays with you.
• Description means communicating clearly what you need and how you want AI to approach it.
• Discernment means evaluating what AI gives back before acting on it.
• Diligence means owning the final result fully, regardless of AI’s role.

Exercise

Map your builder brief to the 4Ds

Pull out the builder brief you created in the previous lesson. This exercise uses it to show you which competencies you’ll need most — and gets you into a real interaction before the next lesson.

Part I: Tag your document

Read through your builder brief and mark each goal, concern, or task with the competency it most relates to:

• Delegation: decisions about what AI should and shouldn’t handle in your builds
• Description: questions about how to communicate requirements and intent clearly
• Discernment: concerns about evaluating or trusting what AI produces
• Diligence: questions about responsibility, testing, and accountability for what you ship

Which competency shows up most? That’s where your attention is already focused — and usually where you’ll see the fastest gains.

Part II: Try one

From your builder brief, pick one task that came up — something real and waiting for you. Before opening AI, write down:

• Which competencies apply? (Most real tasks involve more than one.)
• What does “good enough” look like for this output?

Then take one round with AI on that task. Don’t aim for a finished product — just get a useful starting point.

Part III: Reflect

Look at what you got back. Which competency felt natural? Which caught you off guard? Note one thing you’d do differently on the next pass.

Lesson reflection

• Were you surprised by which competency dominated your mapped questions? What does that tell you?
• How might the two loops have changed a recent AI interaction you had?

What’s next

In the next lesson, we’ll look at how generative AI works — what it can and can’t do — so you can put the 4D Framework into practice with clear-eyed expectations.

Feedback

As you progress through the course, we’d love to hear from you about how you are using concepts from the course in your work, plus any feedback you may have. Share your feedback here.

Acknowledgments and license

Copyright 2026 Anthropic. This course was developed in partnership with CodePath, building on the AI Fluency Framework developed by Prof. Rick Dakan (Ringling College of Art and Design) and Prof. Joseph Feller (University College Cork). Released under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.