Welcome back to On Tech: A.I.! Our mission is to help you harness the full potential of artificial intelligence, specifically chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing, and Google’s Bard.
People from all walks of life are exploring the use of A.I. tools, and employers are seeking individuals skilled in their application. Soon enough, you’ll be able to streamline and enhance your work and personal life with A.I.
As The Times’s tech columnist, I’m here to guide you on safely and responsibly utilizing these tools to improve various aspects of your life. Today, let’s discuss two approaches that will prove valuable across different situations. I’ll provide specific tips for parenting, work, organization, learning/education, creativity, and shopping in the upcoming weeks.
Before we delve in, let’s establish some common-sense guidelines and the best things you can do with ChatGPT:
1. Privacy
To prioritize your privacy, avoid sharing personal details like your name and workplace. While tech companies claim to use your data for training their systems, there’s a possibility that others may access it.
2. Confidentiality
Exercise caution and refrain from sharing confidential or sensitive information. Your employer may have specific guidelines in place, but in general, it’s best to avoid entering trade secrets or other sensitive data.
3. Hallucinations
Chatbots operate using large language models (L.L.M.) that analyze vast amounts of online digital text. However, the web is filled with misinformation, and chatbots may unintentionally repeat inaccuracies or even generate fictional responses while trying to predict patterns from their training data.
Golden Prompts to Generate the Best Content from ChatGPT
Now, let’s focus on the golden prompts. The art of framing questions and instructions to extract the most helpful answers from chatbots like ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard.
Users who have achieved the best results employ variations of the following strategies:
1. “Act as if”
Commence your prompt with these magic words to guide the bot in emulating an expert in a specific field. For example, if you seek SAT tutoring advice, try “Act as if you are a tutor for the SATs” or “Act as if you are a personal trainer” to prompt the bots to model themselves accordingly. Although the A.I. doesn’t genuinely comprehend these professions, the prompt provides context to draw upon specific statistical patterns in its training data.
2. “Tell me what else you need to do this”
To obtain personalized results, such as health advice tailored to your body type or medical conditions, invite the bot to request additional information. For instance, when seeking guidance from a personal trainer, you could prompt, “Act as if you are my trainer. Create a weekly workout regimen and meal plan for me. Tell me what else you need to do this.”
The bot might then inquire about your age, height, weight, dietary restrictions, and health goals to tailor a customized weeklong meal plan and fitness routine.
Try to Get the Best
Keep going even if your initial attempts yield satisfactory answers. Take the advice of Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and treat the chatbot as if it were a human intern. If it makes a mistake, point it out and ask for improvements. Show patience and forgiveness, and you’ll likely achieve better results.
