Between Two (AI) Ferns

Ever thought you’d find yourself mediating between two AIs?

That was me last week, in my home office on a weekend, trying to choose a software system. It felt a bit like Between Two Ferns - except it was me sitting between two bots, passing notes back and forth.

Here’s how it went:
- I mapped out my workflow and requirements with ChatGPT.
- I used Deep Research to generate a scored shortlist of systems.
- I pasted my requirements into the chatbot of the top system.
- Then I pasted the answers back into my ChatGPT thread - which already knew my process.
- ChatGPT gave me clarification questions to feed back to the system’s bot.
- I repeated this loop multiple times.

I never thought there would be humans intermediating between computers - even less so that the human would be me (!) on a quiet Saturday. It felt more like the plot of a sci-fi novel than a weekend admin task.

It wasn’t just theatre though. I:
- Crossed two systems off the checklist.
- Narrowed the whole process down to one final question.
- Brought in a human on the vendor side.
- Got the answer I needed.
- Chose the system.

The surreal part turned out to be the practical part. Acting as the “human in the middle” between two AIs got me to a faster, clearer decision.

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