As a simple girl in tech trying to explore what AI really is, it can be misleading when AI is mostly seen as "Prompting," leading to fancy terms like "Prompt Engineering." We'll come back to what Prompt Engineering is in a moment. Let's get started!
What is Prompting?
Let's first address what Prompting is. Prompting involves using a Generative Model to chat with it and get your questions answered with the help of AI. This can be done for work, to learn about different topics, to assist in various fields, or just for fun!
The most well-known AI models that many people might have heard of include OpenAI's ChatGPT and a new Chinese AI called Deepseek, which is even making waves alongside ChatGPT.
AI can be viewed as a personal Assistant. A virtual Personal Assistant. Any information you need, be if anything, of any domain, AI has got you covered. The only thing that comes in between the knowledge that AI possess and how much are we able to harness from it, is what our prompt is.
A prompt is a question that we ask the AI to get information about a topic. Now, here's the thing: even if you are discussing one topic, your perspective on the same topic might be different from someone else's. So, what works for someone else might not help you understand the same topic. This is where the power of prompting comes in.
The stronger and well-addressed, well-tailored prompt about something specific to what you actually want to know is crucial in getting the output you require.
Remember that example from our computer textbooks: a computer never makes mistakes, but a user might make a mistake in providing the correct input. The same idea applies here. The correct input is what we exactly want to know from the AI model. Easy :)
Now we know what Prompting is, What Next?
Importance of Good Prompting: An Example
Now, with a strong emphasis on how important your prompt is to get your desired output, imagine AI as vast as Doraemon’s pocket. (Yes, the cartoon character, Nobita and Doraemon.) Think about how endless items can be pulled out of Doraemon’s pocket(Knowledge AI has) There are times when Doraemon pulls out the exact gadget he needs at that moment. That is a successful prompt. And you know those times when Doraemon doesn't pick the right gadget on the first try? He keeps pulling out gadgets until he gets the one he wants, right? That's exactly what prompting is.
How to draft this “Perfect Prompt“?
So basically the steps are simple:
List down exactly what you want the AI to do
Hit ENTER.
yep, its that simple. The best prompt is the one that is exactly what you want.
You want in concise the outputs? → “Hey I’ll be asking a few questions, how about you give me short and concise answers“
You want in-detail answer with what the required output of each step? → “Hey so, I would like for the question below you could provide me with the step by step desired outputs?“
You have never studied the topic before and want to understand in the lamest terms possible? → “Hey so can you explain me this topic as if I am a five-year old?“