The art of writing AI prompts
AI is everywhere these days and its misuses are as common as its uses. AI platforms will follow virtually any prompt you give them. But keep in mind that AI has its limits. For example, try asking ChatGPT to tell you a joke and you get this:
Why don’t skeletons fight each other?
Because they don’t have the guts.
Pretty bad, right? The problem is that AI has no sense of humor. It has no empathy either so you have to get as specific as possible, like this: “What is a smart joke in the style of David Letterman about how dogs like to drink out of the toilet?” Here’s the response:
“You ever notice this? A dog drinks out of the toilet…
And suddenly he’s the gross one.
Meanwhile, I’ve seen what Carl from accounting microwaves for lunch every day—
and nobody’s making him eat out of a bowl on the floor.”
Much better, right? Chat needed a reference point, an idea and a style from which to draw upon. Whether you’re writing jokes or analyzing data, AI will do better the more specific you can be. If you google how to write good prompts for AI, there’s an endless number of guides. We looked for something simple and found this one from Harvard University. Unless you’re a student there, you can ignore the first part about Harvard guidelines. After that, you’ll get some very smart guidelines. Let’s try them on the same joke in the style of Letterman and see what we get:
Prompt: Please tell me a joke about how dogs like drinking out of toilets. Make it in the ironic, dry and sarcastic style of David Letterman. Don’t make the punchline too obvious but one that we have to think about for a moment. It should be something observational that we always see around us but don’t really think about until the absurdity is pointed out to us.
AI Response:
“So dogs drink out of the toilet.
People act shocked, like, ‘Oh no, he’s doing it again!’
Yeah—he’s drinking water from a porcelain bowl that magically refills itself.
You know what we call that when it’s in the kitchen? Innovation.
Meanwhile, the same people saying ‘that’s disgusting’ are sipping green juice they found on TikTok that tastes like sadness and lawn clippings… because it ‘detoxes.’
At least the dog has the decency not to pretend it’s good.”
It’s all in the prompt. Using AI is another case of “garbage in, garbage out” but if you take the time to perfect your prompts, you’re more likely to get what you’re looking for. As far as comedy goes, even the best prompts won’t get you on a late night show.