AI Collaboration: How to Get the Best Results with Prompting
The Power of Prompting – Mastering Communication with GPT-3/4
1. The Prompt Paradigm Shift
- Explanation: Unlike traditional coding, you're communicating your intent to an AI with natural language. Precision and clarity are key.
- Example:
- Poor Prompt: "Write me a funny story"
- Better Prompt: "Write a funny story about a squirrel who accidentally joins a circus. Use a surprised and playful tone."
2. The Core Six: Essential Prompting Components
- Context:
- What: Background info for the AI. Sets the stage for everything else.
- Why It Matters: Without context, the AI might generate irrelevant or wrong output.
- Example: "I'm writing a sci-fi novel set in a space colony" before asking for character name ideas.
- Task:
- What: Explicitly tell the AI what to DO (write, translate, summarize, etc.).
- Why It Matters: Avoids ambiguity. Model can't guess your intention.
- Example: "Translate this paragraph from English to Spanish" vs. just pasting the paragraph.
- Exemplars:
- What: Examples of the desired output style/format. Guides the AI by example.
- Why It Matters: Especially helpful for creative tasks, prevents generic output.
- Example: Providing a few haiku poems when asking the model to write one.
- Persona:
- What: Instructing the AI to adopt a "voice" (formal, sarcastic, etc.). Mostly for creative tasks.
- Why It Matters: Influences word choice for a more nuanced response.
- Example: "Write the weather forecast as if you are a grumpy pirate."
- Format:
- What: Specify if you want text, code, bullet points, etc.
- Why It Matters: Prevents misinterpretation.
- Example: "Output a JSON object containing the product name, price, and description"
- Tone:
- What: Overall mood (serious, whimsical...). Least important, but it matters!
- Why It Matters: Affects the vibe of the output, especially for creative work.
3. Mastering GPT-3/4: Creativity and Information
- Strengths: GPT-3/4 excels at generating creative text, translating languages, writing different kinds of content, and answering your questions in an informative way.
- Tailored Prompts:
- Creativity: "Write a poem about the feeling of discovering a hidden waterfall"
- Information: "Summarize the main differences between mitosis and meiosis"
- Format-Specific "Write a Python function to calculate a user's BMI"
4. Practice Makes Perfect (Activity)
- Prompt Remix: Give students a weak prompt, have them improve it using the components. Run versions to see the difference!
5. Beyond the Basics (Advanced)
- Iterative Prompting: Breaking complex tasks into smaller prompts for better results.
- Prompt Chaining: Using output from one prompt as input for another (e.g., summarize a text THEN write a tweet about the summary).
Daniel Shemer Israel