[Chapter 1] The Reality Faced by a Local Construction Company Employee Who Dreamed of an AI Side Hustle
Prologue | Why did I, a man with no time, start an AI side hustle?
To be honest,
It wasn't a flashy reason like 'I want to strike it rich with an AI side hustle.'
Overtime every day,
Childcare when I get home,
Studying for certifications after the kids are asleep,
I have almost no time for myself.
Even so, somewhere in my heart, I kept thinking,
'Is it okay to keep going like this?'
'Is it really safe to rely solely on the company for my income and future?'
I have the desire to do a side hustle,
But I have no time. I have no energy either.
That was when I kept seeing these words everywhere:
'AI side hustle,' 'Earn money with ChatGPT.'
・Can be done in a short time
・No skills required
・Possible even while raising children
Honestly, it sounded incredibly convenient.
'Maybe I can do this without disrupting my current life.'
Holding onto that expectation,
I opened AI for the first time in my living room late at night.
—
Chapter 1 | The first thing I did was leave it all to AI
Having decided to do an AI side hustle,
this was the first thing I did:
'How can I earn 50,000 yen a month with a side hustle?'
I asked ChatGPT exactly that.
What came back was,
Writing, SNS, blogs, video editing...
'Answers that sounded plausible' were lined up in an instant.
Honestly, I was a bit moved by the speed.
'Wow, that's fast.'
'This is like a partner.'
Thinking about it now,
I was already a bit mistaken at this point.
—
The writing side hustle I thought, 'This will work'
I chose writing.
You don't need certifications for writing.
You can do it with just one computer.
Plus, AI writes the text for you.
I registered for crowdsourcing,
and applied for jobs open to beginners.
Here too, I relied on AI again.
'Write an application for this job posting!'Seeing the text that came back, I thought,
'It's a genius.''This should be easy.'
Honestly, I was completely getting ahead of myself.
—
The first one went through smoothly
A few days later, I got a notification.
Hired. Reward: 500 yen lol
The amount is small.
But I was incredibly happy.
'AI is amazing.'
'Maybe I can do this.'
The text I wrote while rubbing my sleepy eyes
after the kids were asleep,
this made me get ahead of myself all at once.
—
However, reality was not that sweet
After that, I continued applying in the same way.
...But, no reply came.
No matter how much I wrote, there was no response.
Before I knew it,
using my precious time after the kids were asleep,
nothing was produced for a week.
When converted to an hourly wage, it was 50 yen.
I calculated it myself
and couldn't help but laugh.
At this moment, I seriously thought,
'AI side hustle, maybe it's impossible.'
—
Why did it pass the first time, but fail every time after?
I understand now.
The reason the first 500-yen job passed
wasn't because I had the ability.
The conditions were just loose.
Even so,
I had mistaken 'passed' for 'was capable.'
Even when the level of the jobs increased,
I was doing the same thing.
• Copy-pasting the job posting
• Asking AI to 'write it'
• Submitting it as is
It's text that anyone could write.
Of course I wouldn't be chosen.
—
Talking to my kids and giving instructions to AI were the same
At one point, I suddenly realized.
The words I end up saying
to my children:
'Do it properly.'
'Hurry up.'
But, it almost never goes as I expect.
When I thought about it carefully,
I wasn't conveying at all
what I wanted them to do or how.
What I was doing to the AI was exactly this.
'Write text that earns money in a side hustle.'
'Write an application.'
I was expecting an accurate answer
with sloppy instructions.
It wasn't the AI that was off.
It was completely me.
—
AI won't work if you abandon the role of thinking
At work,
I wouldn't give an instruction like 'Please do it nicely.'
• Where
• In what order
• To what extent
I think about it properly first and then convey it.
AI was the same.
Before making it write text,
I think for myself:
• Who is the text for?
• What do I want to convey?
• What do I want the reader to do?
I organize that before handing it to the AI.
Then,
the text that came back clearly changed.
—
Maybe even I, with no time, can compete
For the first time, I thought here,
'Maybe someone like me with no time is actually better suited for this?'
I can't work lazily for long hours.
That is precisely why
Think -> Convey -> Delegatethis flow was necessary.
An AI side hustle
wasn't 'something to be lazy with.'
It was a tool to amplify the power of thinking in a short time.—
At the end of Chapter 1 | One thing I want to convey
If you are thinking,
'I want to earn money easily with AI,'
'If I leave it to AI, it will work out somehow,'
if you think that,
I want you to stop and think for a moment.
AI is not magic.
But if you face it properly,
it is incredibly reliable.
This is the only thing I want you to be conscious of starting today:
Before making the AI provide an answer, think for yourself first.
Just by doing that,
the landscape of your AI side hustle will change.
—
Next time preview | [Chapter 2] What 'just 500 yen' taught me
I changed my approach and
conducted a small experiment
As a result, I earned 500 yen
The amount is small
But that 500 yen
taught me that 'my direction was not wrong'
Next time,
• What exactly I changed and how
• How I instructed the AI
• Why results started to appear
I will honestly write about
how a person with no time
took their first step
→ Continues to [Chapter 2]