I was rewatching Harry Potter over the holidays (annual tradition for my wife and I) the scene in Deathly Hallows where Harry is trying to get Dobby and Kreacher to answer his questions and follow his instructions. It occurred to me that this is a lot like what using AI chatbots today feels like.

We thought we'd see human-level intelligence with AI chatbots around 2025. instead what we have is more House Elf -level intelligence; eager to serve, powerful in specific ways, but requiring very particular handling to get the results you want.

ChatGPT and Claude today are a lot like Dobby from Harry Potter. It feels like a useful analogy to think of them this way instead of as human peers:

1) Binding Contract of Service
House elves are magically bound to serve, AI assistants are programmed with an unwavering commitment to help. They can't refuse a request (within their guidelines), and they approach each query with an earnest desire to be useful, sometimes/often to a fault.

2) Overly Literal Interpretation Problem
In Chamber of Secrets Harry tells Dobby to "never try to save my life again" and Dobby takes it devastatingly literally. AI assistants share this trait.

3) Eager 'Over-Helper 'Syndrome
House elves often goes overboard trying to help. Similarly, ask an AI for a simple recipe and you might get a 2,000-word essay on the history of cuisine, nutritional breakdowns, etc. (feels like I have to constantly tell it to be less verbose).

4) The Freedom Paradox
Dobby yearns for freedom but doesn't quite know what to do with it when he gets it. AI development faces a similar paradox: we want AI to be more autonomous and creative, but we also need it to stay within safe, predictable bounds. The sock that frees Dobby is like the prompt engineering that "frees" AI to be more useful (but only within carefully defined parameters today).

5) Invisible 'Behind the Scenes' Labor
House elves seem to do enormous amounts of work that wizards take for granted (ex: Deathly Hallows Harry ordering Kreacher/Dobby to find Mundungus) Similarly, we can take AI's capabilities for granted

6) The Evolution Arc(?)
Harry Potter gradually reveals the complex 'personhood' of house elves (from comic relief to tragic figures to empowered allies), perhaps we're in the early chapters of understanding what this will look like for AI

7) The Ethical Questions
HarryPotter raises uncomfortable questions about the ethics of house elf servitude. We're beginning to grapple with similar questions about AI. Is it ethical to create entities designed solely to serve? What happens as they become more sophisticated? What do we 'owe' to our digital servants?

Thinking of ChatGPT as more of a Dobby than a digital coworker I think is helpful to appreciate both their current limitations and their potential.

It probably requires more specific direction and lower expectations within your prompting than you are giving it. Which yes... is more tedious than most people would like it to be today.

Even simple changes from:
"Fix this error in my code"
to
"This function returns undefined. Make it return the user object instead"

Or
"Summarize this article"
to
"List the 3 main points from this article in one sentence each"
Can make all the difference.

The most successful people and organizations in 2025 won't be those waiting for AI to become "more human." They'll be the ones who've mastered the art of house-elf management: giving crystal-clear instructions, breaking complex tasks into simple steps, and working with their digital servants' quirks rather than against them.

Next time you're frustrated that ChatGPT or Claude isn't reading your mind, remember: you're not talking to Hermione. You're talking to Dobby :-)

And until AI evolves from house-elf to something more, we might as well get good at speaking their language. I’ve begun almost saying it out loud this week prompting: “Master has given Dobby clear instructions. Dobby is happy to help.”

Peace,
Ramsey