The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized how we accomplish our daily tasks and has significantly increased the demand for Prompt Engineering. This is particularly true if you want to harness the full potential of AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Google Bard.
They say the answers generated by AI chatbots are only as good as your prompts. So, how can you effectively communicate with AI?
In this article, we will explore the concept of Prompt Engineering, along with effective prompt examples, tips, and best practices to improve your interactions with AI chatbots.
This Article Covers:
What Is Prompt Engineering?
Prompt Engineering is an effective way to create AI language model inputs. It follows a set of guidelines to give prompts that the AI model understands.
The main objective of Prompt Engineering is to elicit desired outputs from an AI model. By carefully crafting prompts, users can receive more relevant and accurate responses from AI chatbots.
The process of Prompt Engineering takes into account the strengths and limitations of an AI model. It focuses on designing prompts that work well with the model’s capabilities and finding creative ways to overcome limitations.
Because of how developers train AI models, there are specific prompt formats that work better for each of them. It’s good practice to consult with the AI model’s documentation to understand these better.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a prompt engineer to communicate effectively with AI models.
Common AI-Related Terms
Tons of AI-related buzzwords have become common nowadays. Here are some that you may want to know when using AI chatbots and other AI tools:
- Machine Learning (ML): ML is the process of training machines to identify patterns in data. This, in turn, allows them to make predictions or decisions.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP is another branch of AI. It focuses on helping machines understand human language and facilitate communication between machines and humans.
- Large Language Models (LLMs): LLMs are AI models trained on vast amounts of data. They help computers to do tasks like talking and answering questions.
- Generative AI: Generative AI is a technology that allows machines to create content. This includes text, art, videos, and music.
- AI Dataset: These are articles, books, journals, and any data used to train AI models.
Elements of a Prompt
Different AI tools are available nowadays. Most of them require user input to know what to do. Several elements help make a prompt more effective. They make sure that the AI model clearly understands your instructions.
Here are the basic elements that make up a good prompt:
- Context: Context is crucial for providing clear, specific details that enable the AI model to generate better answers.
Example:
Less Effective: “Give me a business name.”
More Effective: “Give me a business name for an ice cream shop in Illinois targeting teenagers.”
- Input Data: This is the main part of your prompt. It shows the primary goal of your instructions.
- Output Example: A well-crafted prompt may include the format of your expected output.
- Scope/Limitations: Defining limitations helps the AI model focus on the desired output and avoid providing unnecessary information.
Example:
“Can you make a social media post about a new workout plan for my website? Only focus on Facebook effective captions. I am a fitness coach, and Facebook is my main platform.”
- Tone: You can set the tone or level of formality of the answers you get from an AI model. Some examples include telling the model to give answers in an informal tone. You can also tailor your prompt to answer in other styles of communication.
Remember: Each prompt may or may not contain all these components. The elements will differ depending on your use case.
Prompt Categories
You can classify different prompts based on their use cases. This can help you know when to use which format.
Here are some examples of different prompt learning categories:
1. Instruction-Based Prompts
These prompts can be seen more commonly on AI assistants like Alexa, Siri, and others. Examples include simple commands or instructions like “Turn on the lights” or “Set a timer.”
2. Information-Getting Prompts
These prompts are designed to gather specific information from AI chatbots. Users ask fact-based queries to obtain information on a particular topic, such as “What is the capital of France?” or “Who is the current President of the United States?”
3. Entertainment Prompts
You can tailor your prompts to ask for jokes or trivia from AI chatbots. It can also go as far as playing text-based games, among others.
4. Creative Writing Prompts
Creative writing prompts bring out a chatbot’s ability to generate creative content. This includes poems, song lyrics, and stories. You can also customize your prompt to create creative writing in any style.
Example: “Write a short poem about the Big Bang in Shakespeare’s style. Please use old English.”
5. Language Translation Prompts
Chatbots can assist in translating sentences from one language to another. You can request translations in a specific language or dialect and verify the accuracy of the responses.
6. Comparison Prompts
With enough context, AI models can compare two products, services, or other entities.
7. Opinion Prompts
Some AI models will tell you that they don’t have opinions. But you can still get a model’s insight based on its training data.
Example: “Give me your opinion on people saying women’s rights are unnecessary nowadays. Keep it to 10 sentences long.”
ChatGPT’s Answer: “As an AI language model, I don’t have personal opinions or beliefs. However, I can provide a neutral viewpoint…”
8. Education and Learning Prompts
AI tools can be valuable for learning and education purposes. For example, it can provide detailed information about different STEM topics. It can also summarize learning materials. Just include the whole text in your prompt.
9. Role-Based Prompts
Role-based prompts are effective if you want to simulate a specific person’s perspective.
Example: “As a fitness coach, your role is to create a workout plan that can help your client with a 9-to-5 job stay fit. The client also wants to do body recomp. You will have to provide general meal plans and a 1 week PPL split. Your goal is to help this client reach his goals within a year.”
What Is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot powered by the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. OpenAI developed the GPT model for years before releasing the chatbot in November 2022. GPT is only one of the models that OpenAI has developed. These Generative AI models can create new images, audio, and text.
ChatGPT was trained on large datasets. It can generate human-like responses based on your prompts. It gives coherent and relevant answers within a few seconds. It can also assist with tasks like writing emails, essays, code, and more.
How To Communicate with ChatGPT
You can interact with ChatGPT like you would with another human. But effective communication is a different topic. Efficient ChatGPT prompt engineering has a big influence on ChatGPT’s answers.
Here is the usual process for forming an effective AI Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT:
- Define your goal: What do you want to create using this prompt? What answer are you expecting from ChatGPT? Make sure to be specific when defining your goals.
- Draft and send your initial prompt: ChatGPT leaves room for mistakes in its prompts. After defining your goal, you can go ahead and try out your initial prompt and see how the chatbot answers.
- Check the response: Observe how the AI chatbot interpreted your prompt. Did it get the tone you wanted? Is the answer accurate? Is the word count correct? Did the answer fulfill your goals?
- Improve your prompt: ChatGPT has a fairly reliable memory. It can remember a certain amount of context from your previous prompts. Use this to your advantage and provide more information about what you want it to answer.
You can test and improve your prompt many times until you get your desired output. This may take a few tries, but you will be amazed by how the chatbot catches up to your wishes.
Additionally, these prompt elements are not limited to text-based answers and can be useful for generating prompts for AI art and other AI tools.
Best Practices for Prompt Engineering with OpenAI API
OpenAI provides a general guide to making the most of their API. Here are some of the best practices for Prompt Engineering with OpenAI API:
1. Always Be Descriptive
Provide specific details about what you want the AI model to accomplish. Include information about the context, format, style, and any other relevant aspects.
Example:
Less Effective: “Write an essay about adolescence.”
More Effective: “Write a 1000-word essay about the adolescence of a common student. He is an Asian aspiring to become a software developer in the United States. He moved to the US to pursue his studies. Make the tone conversational and casual.”
2. Provide Examples Whenever Possible
Specify the desired format you want the model to generate.
Example: “Give me a simple Java code that functions as a calculator. Use different methods for each mathematical operation.”
Desired format:
public class Calculator {
public static void main (String[] args){
}
public void Add (){
//your code here}
public void Subtract (){
//your code here}
}
}
Please correct any syntax errors in the example format.
3. Avoid Fluff
While the prompt should be descriptive, you should avoid any unnecessary details. This can confuse the AI model and give inaccurate answers.
4. Use ### or “””
To separate the instructions from the context, you can use either “###” or triple quotes (“””).
Example:
Try to summarize this short prose:
“””
{your prose here}
“””
5. Tell What the AI Model Should Do
Focus on specifying what the AI model should do rather than what it should not do.
Less Effective: “Write an email to a colleague asking for advice about what beauty product to use. Don’t recommend products for sensitive skin.”
More Effective: “Write an email to a colleague asking for advice about what beauty product to use. She has sensitive skin and is always breaking out. Provide ways to solve her face’s pimple and blackhead issues.”
Other Tips to Improve ChatGPT Prompts
The Prompt Engineering AI revolution is new. To make the most of this tool, here are additional tips to improve your ChatGPT prompts:
- Try role-playing. Many users have reported the effectiveness of role-playing in ChatGPT prompts. Engage with the AI model by assuming a specific role and asking for insights or opinions based on that role.
Example: “As an {specific field expert}, tell me about the importance of {specific topic}.”
- Break down your queries. You can try to break down your queries into bullet points to allow the AI model to digest them better.
Example: “Can you explain these different programming jargons and concepts in Java? Can you make it just 1 sentence for each explanation?
-
- Multithreading
- Object-Oriented Programming
- Inheritance
- Encapsulation
- Abstraction”
- Know when to start a new conversation. It might be tempting to keep the conversation going, but ChatGPT and other AI chatbots have limited memory. This means it will start going off-topic as you go deeper into the conversation.
- Request a step-by-step explanation. Sometimes, ChatGPT may provide a high-level explanation of your question or prompt. If you require a more detailed or step-by-step explanation, don’t hesitate to ask for it. This can help you to understand the reasoning behind the model’s answer.
Other Prompt Examples for ChatGPT
OpenAI provides its own examples of prompts per use case on its website. Here are some other out-of-the-box Prompt Engineering examples for ChatGPT:
Q&A
“How was the formula for the area of a circle derived? Who was responsible for its discovery?”
Creating Summary
“Can you summarize this for a {specific target audience}?”
{Your text to summarize}
Grammar Correction
“Can you check this modern English sentence for grammatical errors and correct them? Then, explain which ones you corrected and why they were wrong.”
Get Chatbot’s Opinion
When asked, a chatbot often says that it doesn’t have opinions. But you can still feed it with simple prompts to get the AI’s “opinion” — its general grasp on a topic based on its training dataset.
“Can you give me your opinion on people saying women’s rights are unnecessary nowadays? Keep it only 10 sentences short.”
Create Schedules
“Create a day schedule for a 25-year-old using these parameters:
- one hour allocated for studying the Italian language
- one hour allocated for studying Python
- 9 hours for a regular 9-5 job
- 1 hour for taking a bath and doing skincare or bodycare”
Creative Writing
“Can you give me a social media post caption about {specific social media platform and details}?”
Explain Code
Can you provide a step-by-step explanation for the following code? Specify the following:
- Programming language
- Variable functions
- Methods
- Other programming concepts, if included in the code
{your code here}
Create a Content Calendar with Specific Content
Online Businesses can greatly benefit from generative AI. With the right prompt, you can mass-produce good content. Have your writers proofread, and you’re good to go!
Example: “Can you create a content calendar for a social media page about a business selling healthy meal plans? Please follow these parameters:
- Should be cross-platform
- Should cover from Monday to Saturday”
Create Social Media Script
AI marketing has also been booming, with more and more creators using these tools to help them generate ad content.
“Can you make me a YouTube sponsor script that promotes a supplement that promotes healthy muscle growth? The brand is called Ollempic. This is for my channel that talks about {your unique YouTube characteristics or niche}”
Whatever your profession, you can ask anything via chatbots like ChatGPT for assistance. However, while it might not give you complete answers, it will help you get started with your tasks.
Preventing AI Hallucinations
AI hallucinations refer to situations where AI systems — like ChatGPT — generate false or fabricated information and believe it to be true. These hallucinations can occur in AI chatbots, and here are some ways to address them:
- Be specific with details unique to your situation. Avoid being vague.
- Provide enough context to limit the output. Remember that the chatbot will go out of its way to support you, even if you are wrong.
- Tell it not to lie. This might sound surprising, but it works. Telling the chatbot not to lie will help it prioritize giving accurate information more than it thinks you desire.
Conclusion
Prompt Engineering is a powerful technique to harness the capabilities of AI models. With effective prompts, you can get your desired answers and understand how AI models “think.”
By following the tips and best practices in this guide, you can give the best prompts for similar chatbots like Bing Chat, Google Bard, and even AI art generators like Midjourney.
Artificial Intelligence is an evolving technology, and it’s not immune to mistakes. Always remember to verify the information an AI chatbot spits out.
If you’re searching for a reliable AI tool to create visual content for social media, content marketing, and promotions — check out Artsmart.AI on AppSumo!
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