A “prompt” refers to a series of instructions, questions, or pieces of text provided to an AI system to guide its response generation. It is a way of telling what you want and how you want it through commands.
It’s essential to be clear and concise, avoid ambiguities or double meanings that can lead to misinterpretation, and provide enough context so that the model can generate a relevant and coherent response.
ChatGPT is one of the most widely used tools to interact with AI, but how can you improve the quality of your prompts in this system?
This conversational AI will generate responses based on the context provided and its prior knowledge. Therefore, if you want more precise answers, you must be clear and specific in your questions and instructions.
1. Include details and context. If your instructions are unclear, you let the model assume or guess what you mean.
2. Ask the chat to adopt a personality. The response will align with your needs by asking the chat to act as an expert on something specific.
3. Ask step by step. It would be best to give a sequence of steps for more complex tasks. This will make the answer more accurate.
4. Turn complex tasks into simpler subtasks. This is one of the most valuable prompts if you want the AI to do something more complex.
For tasks requiring multiple sets of independent instructions to handle different cases, it may be beneficial to start by classifying the query type and use that classification to determine what instructions are needed.
5. Use examples or references. If you want to imitate a writing style or need reliable and relevant information for your query, you can ask for it to be based on a specific text.
6. Keep the thread of the conversation going. ChatGPT tends to get sidetracked, lose the discussion thread, or make up responses entirely. However, there are some techniques you can use to keep the AI on track.
You can use phrases like: “On what basis do you say that?” or “What evidence supports your answer?” Sometimes, the AI will apologize for making things up and give a new answer, and other times, it will provide you with helpful information about its reasoning process.
Now that you know this, get the most out of ChatGPT!