Prompt engineering is the process of setting the context of AI tools like ChatGPT to improve the quality of responses. By using an engineered prompt, users can configure ChatGPT to interpret and format questions accurately. This increases the likelihood of receiving desired answers. It is crucial to understand that AI tools like ChatGPT can generate wrong or useless answers if they receive irrelevant prompts. Hence, prompt engineering is a way to reduce the risk of getting wrong answers.
How to get more out of ChatGPT and other AI tools using prompt engineering
Users can get more out of AI tools like ChatGPT by performing prompt engineering. Prompt engineering involves designing effective prompts to encourage users to provide necessary information. The following are some ways to do prompt engineering:
Change the output format of ChatGPT
The first method of prompt engineering is to change the output format of ChatGPT. This does not affect the quality of the content in an answer, but its structure. Users can ask ChatGPT to assign a unique identifier to each response. Long conversations with ChatGPT typically follow a particular path as it answers more and more detailed questions. At some point, it can be useful to go back to a previous response and go down another path. This is where IDs come in handy. Therefore, users must always include a unique identifier at the beginning of each answer provided in the conversation.
Evaluate the quality of the question
An imprecise question will lead to an imprecise answer. Therefore, users can ask ChatGPT to evaluate the quality of the question and suggest a better alternative. Users can evaluate the accuracy and quality of each prompt by assigning a rating on a scale of 1 to 10. If the prompt receives a rating of 8 or higher, users should respond to it. However, if it receives a rating lower than 8, users can provide a suggestion for a better prompt instead.
Suggest the next logical questions
In a conversation with ChatGPT about an unfamiliar topic, users often don't know what questions to ask. But ChatGPT can suggest the next 3 logical questions. Users then have the option to either select one of these suggestions or follow another path. At worst, the suggestions act as inspiration. Whenever a user answers a prompt, they can include three additional questions to further explore the answer provided.
Set the context
Human language is ambiguous, and the intended semantic meaning of a question can differ depending on the context. Hence, prompt engineering allows users to set the context and thus narrow down the semantic meaning of the terms used, increasing the likelihood of ChatGPT understanding. Users can design an initial prompt that sets the context, defines the format, and helps the user get a good answer. The process of prompt engineering typically involves identifying the user's needs, the context, the desired format of the answer, and any other constraints.
Use meta prompt engineering
Meta prompt engineering involves ChatGPT in the process of defining how it should assist in generating an engineering prompt for a specific set of users and context. Hence, engineered prompts, used properly, can guide users through the process of generating another engineered prompt. ChatGPT will ask relevant questions and incrementally create a suggestion for a prompt.
In conclusion, prompt engineering can help users get more out of AI tools like ChatGPT. By setting the context, changing the output format, evaluating the question, suggesting the next logical questions and using meta prompt engineering, users can improve the quality of responses and get better answers. To learn more about prompt engineering, check out the video "Powered by AI - Structure your Conversations with Prompt Engineering" on Youtube.
