Are you interested in learning about the latest buzzword in the tech industry – Prompt Engineering? In the past few weeks, this new skill has been making waves and commanding salaries of up to $350,000. If you’re looking to upskill and explore new job opportunities, then Prompt Engineering might just be the skill you need.
In this article, we will provide you with a beginner’s guide to Prompt Engineering. We’ll start by breaking down some basic terminologies, such as NLP, GPT, and AI. We’ll then delve into the core work of Prompt Engineering and explore the different types of prompts and techniques used in the field. Finally, we’ll provide you with practical examples of Prompt Engineering, so you can see firsthand how this skill can be applied.
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Key Takeaways
- Prompt Engineering is a new and highly sought-after skill in the tech industry, commanding high salaries.
- The skill involves working in the AI field’s NLP section and using large language models to prompt and get the best results.
- Prompt Engineering involves two types of prompting: prompting by example and direct prompting. As a prompt engineer, you need to give the AI specific details and your main goal before getting the output.
Understanding Basic Terminologies
AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of study where computers are taught to think, learn, and understand like humans. The goal is to make computers perform tasks that only humans could do before, such as creating content, solving complex problems, drawing, coding, and programming.
NLP
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subset of AI where computers are trained to understand human language. This allows them to comprehend questions and provide answers, which is where prompt engineering comes into play.
GPT
Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) is an NLP AI model that understands human language. When computers are trained to understand human language, they are working in the NLP field. When the computer is able to do this, it is called an AI model, which is what GPT is. There are multiple versions of GPT, such as GPT-2, GPT-3, and open sources like GPT-Neo.
LLM
Large Language Model (LLM) is an important term in prompt engineering courses. It is an abbreviation for a language model like GPT-3, which has 175 billion parameters. It is important to learn about parameters and other aspects of LLMs to become a professional prompt engineer.
As a beginner prompt engineer, it is essential to understand these basic terminologies. By mastering these concepts, you will be able to create effective prompts and get the best results out of LLMs like GPT-3. In the next section, we will explore some use cases and delve into advanced prompting techniques.
What is Prompt Engineering?
Prompt Engineering is a new skill that has recently gained popularity. It involves working in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and specifically in the subset of AI called Natural Language Processing (NLP). The goal of Prompt Engineering is to learn how to communicate with large language models like GPT-3 to get the best results.
In Prompt Engineering, a prompt is simply the text that is given to the AI model to understand and then reply to. The AI reply is the output. The skill of Prompt Engineering involves learning how to write the best prompts to get the best results from the AI model.
There are two main types of prompts: prompt by example and direct prompting. Prompt by example involves providing an example to the AI model to understand what you want. Direct prompting involves simply asking a question or giving a command to the AI model.
As a professional Prompt Engineer, it is important to understand your goal and what you expect from the AI model before writing prompts. This involves giving a role to the model, being detailed in your prompts, and using a confident and knowledgeable tone of voice.
Core Work of Prompt Engineering
As a prompt engineer, your main goal is to understand how to talk to AI language models to get the best results. This involves working with large language models like GPT-3, which has 175 billion parameters. In order to achieve this, you need to understand some basic terminologies like AI, NLP, and GPT.
AI, or artificial intelligence, is the field where we try to teach computers to think, learn, and understand like humans. NLP, or natural language processing, is a subset of AI where we train computers to understand human language. GPT, or generative pre-trained transformer, is an NLP AI model that understands human language. We have multiple versions of GPT, like GPT-2 and GPT-3, as well as open sources like GPT Neo.
Prompt engineering is the skill of learning how to give the best prompts to get the best results out of the AI language model. The prompt is the text you give to the AI that the AI will understand and then reply. There are two types of prompts: prompt by example and direct prompting. Prompting by example involves providing an example to the AI to understand what you want, while direct prompting involves simply asking the AI a question and getting a direct answer.
As a professional prompt engineer, you need to understand your goal and what you expect before you start writing prompts. You need to give a role to the model and provide details about your target goal to get the best results. This involves being detailed in your tone of voice and giving the AI specific instructions on how to generate the best output.
To practice prompt engineering, you can use tools like Char GPT and the Open AI Playground. By practicing these techniques, you can start playing with the AI and getting awesome results out of the AI model.
Types of Prompts
Prompt by Example
Prompt by example is a type of prompting where the user provides an example of the desired output to the AI model. The AI model then generates a response that follows the same format as the example provided. For instance, if the user provides an example prompt of “What is the capital of the USA?” and the answer format as “The capital of USA is [answer]”, the AI will respond with an answer that follows the same format.
Direct Prompting
Direct prompting is a type of prompting where the user provides a direct prompt to the AI model without providing an example. The AI model generates a response based on the prompt provided. For example, if the user prompts the AI model with “What is the capital of the USA?”, the AI model will generate a response with the answer “Washington DC”.
As a prompt engineer, it is important to understand the two types of prompting and when to use each one. Prompt by example is useful when the user wants the AI model to follow a specific format or structure. Direct prompting is useful when the user wants the AI model to generate a response based on a specific prompt without any restrictions.
Prompt Techniques
Giving a Role to the Model
As a prompt engineer, it’s important to give a specific role to the AI model. By doing so, you can make the AI focus on a specific target or goal. For instance, you can tell the AI that it’s an expert in writing YouTube titles. This will help the AI generate more relevant and effective titles.
Being Detailed
To get the best results out of the AI model, it’s important to be detailed in your prompts. You should explain what you want the AI to do and how you want it to do it. For example, if you want the AI to generate YouTube video titles, you can tell it to think of catchy and attention-grabbing titles that will encourage people to click and watch the video. You can also tell the AI to come up with titles that are short, concise, direct, and clever.
Asking Questions
As a prompt engineer, you should ask the AI model questions to make sure that it understands your goals and expectations. This will help the AI generate more relevant and effective results. For example, before generating YouTube video titles, you can ask the AI model about the type of video, the topic or theme, and the target audience. This will help the AI generate titles that are more relevant and effective.
Practical Examples of Prompting
Example 1
Prompting by Example and Direct Prompting are the two main types of prompts. Prompting by Example involves providing an example to the AI to understand what you want. Direct Prompting involves directly asking the AI for what you want. For example, if you want to know the capital of the USA, you can either provide an example like “What is the capital of [country]?” or directly ask “What is the capital of the USA?”.
Example 2
As a prompt engineer, it is important to understand your goal before writing prompts. For instance, if you want to generate YouTube video titles about online marketing, you can give a role to the model by saying “You are an expert in writing viral YouTube titles”. Then, provide details on how you want the titles to be like. For instance, “Think of catchy and attention-grabbing titles that will encourage people to click and watch the video on YouTube. The titles should be short, concise, and direct. They should also be creative and clever but come up with either unexpected and surprising. Do not use titles that are too generic or ties that have been used before.” Finally, tell the AI to ask you questions to understand everything before getting the output. This will help the AI generate more relevant and effective titles.
To summarize, as a prompt engineer, you can prompt the AI by providing examples or directly asking for what you want. It is important to understand your goal and provide details to the AI before generating prompts.