The Art of the AI Prompt

AKA how to talk to Large Language Models like a human

Climb the staircase illustration

2.

Climb the staircase

A conversation is built step-by-step as a reciprocal, more-or-less symmetrical, interaction between people1.

The value of a conversation is iteratively built over a period of time as more information is exchanged and more ideas are added. The same is true when engaging with Large Language Models.

You need to climb a staircase where you iteratively create value cooperatively2.

Do

Let’s start a conversation about how I can develop a start-up idea getting solar panels onto every roof in the UK. What do you think the starting point should be?

Don’t

Ok, but can we hurry this along. I need the answer for the presentation I’m giving in a minute.

Footnotes

  1. This is the basics of Conversation Analysis (CA) that Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson started as a discipline in the ‘70s. ↩

  2. This can also be thought of as finding common ground within the human-machine interaction. Herbert Clark talks about this in his work particularly how non-specialists understand meaning from specialists ↩