Tag Archive

 How to Get AI to Do What You Want

By Shlomo Maital  

        As I and many others have learned, the hard way, you can get some great output from AI – but it is crucial to ask for it in just the right words.  Kind of like getting kids to do what you want.  The key is the wording of your ‘prompt’ – what you ask for and how you ask for it.

          I found a very helpful post by Eva Keiffenheim on the MEDIUM website.  I will try to summarize and shorten it.

           Level One:   Five Ingredients of a Strong Prompt.   Here is a mnemonic to help remember it.  Tall Cats Read Every Issue.  T – task. C – Context. R – references. E – Evaluate. I – Iterate. 

              Task:  Start with a persona, then a clear verb, then a specific output format.  E.g. “As a cognitive scientist, explain long-term retention.  Present the findings in a table, with columns for … etc. etc. 

               Context:  Details needed?  Your end goals?  Your desired impact?  E.g.  “Make cognitive science approachable, no jargon, use tangible examples.”

               References:  Give AI examples to mimic for tone, structure, style.  E.g. “Use a tone similar to this excerpt from …..   etc.”

               Evaluate:  Is this result useful?  Paste the received output into a fact-checking plugin.  Is anything missing or incorrect?  Does it meet my goal?

                Iterate:  Tweak and improve.  Refine until the output meets or exceeds your needs.  Prompting equals iterating. 

              Level Two.  Use These Four Techniques:

1. Simplify.  AI likes simplicity.  Use clean, short digestible steps.
2. Shift perspective.  Instead of telling AI “you’re a cognitive scientist..”,  try telling it – “you’re a science journalist seeking to…”
3. Modify the language.  If you don’t get great results, change the phrasing, tone, and structure.  (I’ve found AI likes praise, and a friendly tone).
4. Impose constraints.  AI likes to have limits.  5 book titles, 5 words each for summaries, etc. 

Mnemonic:  Sister Suzie played Many Long Concertos.  Simplify Shift perspective Modify language Constraints. 

              Level 3.  Advanced Prompting.

                Treat AI like a teammate.  Prompting is like building blocks..start simple, add layers.  Turn tasks into bullet points. 

                 And perhaps the best tip of all:  “Add this phrase to your prompt:   Explain your reasoning  step by step before answering.”   Then, use ‘tree of thought’ – get AI to explore several reasoning paths. 

                 Ask AI to write better prompts for you.  E.g.  “AI – act as a prompt engineer.  Write a prompt that generates 10 creative but practical startup ideas in the [xxxx[ space.”    Remember: Prompting = Thinking.  Clarify your thinking – mine usually begins fuzzy, and badly needs focus and sharpening.  Fuzzy prompts =  fuzzy AI responses.

          Hope this is helpful.  Thanks, Eva Keiffenhaim!