How to Write AI Prompts With Example: A Guide to Writing Effective AI Prompts

 How to Write AI Prompts With Example: A Guide to Writing Effective AI Prompts

While AI may not take over the world anytime soon, it has made significant progress in recent years. There’s no need to look too far ahead and look at the rate at which generative AI tools are being adopted. Today, 3 out of 5 workers are already using generative AI or plan to use it soon. Similarly, ChatGPT, the most famous example of the generative AI boom, has amassed 180 million users .

However, the rapid emergence of these tools has caught people who don’t really know how to write AI prompts off guard. Quality instructions are a must to ensure the best possible results with these generative AI tools. With AI, it’s not just what you say; how you say it is just as crucial, if not more so.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk you through how to enable AI so you can start using it right away.

What are AI Prompts?

Before we tell you how to write AI prompts, let's start with the basics and understand what AI prompts are.

Prompts are the instructions you give to an AI system to generate the desired responses or outputs. They are user inputs that are converted into outputs by the AI ​​system. Using an AI system, you can create coherent responses by experimenting with language and structures. If your instructions match well with the AI ​​system you are using, it will generate the desired results.

Why do we need quality AI-based fast writing?

We need good AI instructions because they make all the difference in generating good answers. Let’s explain what that means. Imagine going on a tour abroad where all the signs say Spanish or Greek. Sure, you might understand one or two of them, but will you be able to navigate them successfully?

When you give confusing or incoherent instructions to AI, its reaction is similar to yours when you see signs in foreign languages. It may get one or two of these instructions right, but it will usually struggle to provide coherent responses. Quality AI instructions are the perfect bridge between the user’s goals and the AI’s understanding, resulting in a fully-fledged AI-based learning system .

Types of AI Prompts

AI prompts can be of different types, depending on their context, purpose, and needs. Let’s discuss them briefly below.

1. Generative invitations

Generative prompts ask AI to create images, text, and music.

Examples

• Write a story where two friends separated in childhood and met again 12 years later.
• Create a bustling city of ancient Rome.

2. Interpretation instructions 

You can ask the AI ​​to interpret the information using these instructions.

Example

• Describe the main areas of intervention of the General Data Protection Rules (GDPR). Analyze and interpret its impact on the technology sector.
• Interpret current trends in consumer behavior in the smartphone market and their impact on smartphone manufacturers.

3. Q&A invitations

These instructions allow you to get informative answers using AI.

Examples

• What are the United States' oil reserves and what is their contribution to the American economy?
• Why is computer knowledge essential and how can it improve career prospects?

4. Conditional invitations

Conditional statements limit the AI's response to defined factors.

Examples

• Give me a recipe for a high protein, meatless dinner.
• Provide troubleshooting steps to a user who contacted customer support for their smartphone.

5. Comparative prompts

Comparison prompts can be used to allow the AI ​​to compare two items.

Examples

• Compare the advantages and disadvantages of smartphones versus tablets.
• Compare the benefits of studying STEM versus the arts and highlight the key features of these programs.

6. Invitations to rephrase

Rephrasing instructions help you change the tone of a text.

Examples

• Reword the following lines and make them look more formal.
• Reframe the following conversation in a casual context.

7. Task-specific invitations

These instructions are useful when working on specific applications and domains.

Examples 

• Create code for a Hello World output in Python.
• Create a comprehensive lesson plan for an 8th grade math class. Include a variety of puzzles that engage students.

How to write AI prompts?

Let's discuss some useful tips to improve your fast AI game.

1. Know your AI system

Before you start giving endless instructions to your AI systems, it is essential to know them well. Some AI models excel at writing, others at generating images, and others at generating videos.

For example, ChatGPT and Gemini are known for their text generation capabilities, while DALL.E is suitable for image generation. Similarly, Sora excels in video generation, while GitHub Copilot is famous for code generation.

You can understand the performance of a model by spending time with it and experimenting with different instructions. It helps you determine how well it has been optimized and trained on datasets. Therefore, you can modify your instructions accordingly to get the most out of an AI model.

2. Be as specific as possible

One thing about computers and AI models is that they don’t like ambiguity. The more specific a command is, the better it performs. For example, if you ask ChatGPT to write a few lines about X, Y, or Z, it will generate a generic item that fits each scenario, but that’s not what you want.

This indicates that you need to be more specific, making sure the results match your needs. For example, if you want ChatGPT to write a blog post about getting better grades, you should be a bit more specific than writing something generic. You can give it a prompt like this:

“Write a 600-word blog post aimed at students to help them score better on their math exams. Include tips, such as how to approach a problem, how to check an answer, etc. Use a conversational tone so that students feel comfortable understanding it.”

As we can see, this prompt is complete and provides the following information:

• Target audience
• Number of words
• Specific topics
• Content Type (Tips)
• Desired tone

3. Have a human-like conversation

Instead of approaching ChatGPT and other instruction-based AIs from a programming perspective, you should look at them from a conversational perspective. You should talk to them regularly, which may require a paradigm shift for some people. Talk to them as if you were talking to someone to make the conversation more organic.

The best way to do this is to address the AI ​​program with names like Alexa, Bob, etc. This is helpful because when you address the AI ​​by name, you include all the essential details of the conversation. When you talk to a person, they may need clarification or stray from the topic under discussion. You may want to rephrase your questions to better understand them.

This is called interactive promotion because it comes from your interactions with the AI ​​system. You may need to take a multi-step approach: ask a question, get an answer, ask another question, etc. We’ve done this, and doing it 10-20 times usually gives you a much better answer.

4. Make AI a profession

One of the most powerful features of ChatGPT is that it can impersonate anyone and generate replies as if that person were responding. While many have asked ChatGPT to write like Shakespeare , you can have it assume any profession, from a professor to a fiction writer to a marketing manager.

For example, you can ask ChatGPT to take on the role of a marketing manager of a smartphone company, a journalist, and a customer. You can ask them what their perspective is on the evolution of the smartphone market and how they imagine the future.

Here are some examples of fast generation in this context:

• From a marketing manager's perspective, describe the current state of the smartphone market and its future.
• From a tech journalist's perspective, describe the current state of the smartphone market and its future.
• From a customer's perspective, describe the current state of the smartphone market and its future.

5. Use of open and closed questions

Knowing when to use open-ended and closed-ended questions is like knowing when to close or open a door. Open-ended questions are meant to trigger brainstorming sessions with your AI system, where you invite it to be creative and come up with dynamic ideas. In contrast, closed-ended questions are meant for situations where you want a direct yes or no answer.

• Open question: What are the reasons for the decline in smartphone prices over the years?
• Closed Question: Are advances in manufacturing technology responsible for the decline in smartphone prices?

To answer the first question, AI will provide several factors that contribute to the decline in smartphone prices. In the second case, AI will directly answer whether improvements in manufacturing are responsible for the decline in smartphone prices.

6. Be open to experimentation

Playing is a great way to create the best AI instructions because it helps you hone your craft and identify gaps. You can do this by throwing various instructions at your AI system and seeing how it responds. Here are some examples to get you started:

• Imagine you are a bullet fired from a gun that hits a tree. Describe your journey, starting from the moment you are fired to the moment you hit the target. How do you feel and what do you see throughout your journey?
• You are a radio that has been placed in the attic and has remained there for several years. Describe your life, from the time the owner bought you until now.
• Consider yourself a time traveler who has traveled to the time of Socrates in Greece. Describe what you see around you. Please also describe the philosophical ideas you discussed when you met Socrates.
• Tell an imaginary conversation between a soccer ball and a shoe, describing their journeys and what they encounter on a regular basis.
• Delve into the world of elephants and describe how they live their lives. Discover how elephants think about their community, social structure, survival, and more.

As you can see, these examples are unconventional and you probably don’t think about them regularly. That’s what makes them unique: they help you push the limits of your AI system. It’s important to see how the AI ​​answers these questions: observe the mistakes it makes, the areas where it excels, and where its imagination seems limited. This information will help you improve the effectiveness of your instructions, because you can now work around the limitations you might otherwise face.

7. Understand the limits of an AI system

Whatever you think about AI taking over the world, the reality is that it can’t do everything. It’s smart in some areas and stupid in others, and it’s essential to understand this difference when discussing how to write AI instructions.

For example, Open AI’s ChatGPT was trained with datasets from the internet before 2021. Therefore, its limitations will become apparent when you ask about events in 2024. Similarly, its training datasets did not include private internet or offline data and information you have shared with AI in the past. Be sure to keep this context in mind before giving instructions to ChatGPT and other AI systems.

8. Provide feedback

While you might think of AI as a good servant, which it certainly is, the reality is a little more nuanced. When you want to learn how to use AI, you need to think of it as an iterative relationship between you and the AI ​​system you’re using. Think of it as collaborating with your colleagues to create something valuable.

Telling an AI system which answers were useful and which were not while suggesting improvements helps it understand the kind of results you want to achieve. As a result, it improves its performance in that direction, giving you better results.

Conclusion 

Quality instructions are at the heart of any meaningful conversation between humans and AI. Interactions can become much more productive if you know how to write AI instructions in the right context, be specific, and suggest improvements.