The word prompt truly brings laughter to my belly. First of all, it is composed of 5 consonants and only 1 vowel. Rather crunchy! Prompt graciously envelopes the word “prom” at its beginning. I imagine elegant fabrics, fruit punch, and a disco ball. Hints of young love.
Prompt can be used to refer to speedy arrival as in, “She was not late to the museum tour—she was prompt”. It can point to immediate gratification, as in, “The dude at the beach raised his hand and promptly received his surfboard wax”. The definition of prompt can hint at being triggered or inspired, as in, “They were prompted to pull out their cameras and catch the sentimental moment of deer and coyote drinking from the same stream”. Finally, prompt can be defined as the act of giving instruction. In the context of today’s musing, we shall refer to this latter definition.
The interesting thing is that prompting for giving instruction—for teaching—can also be broken down into a couple of definitions. In the academic setting, there is the prompt that is passed out to students when they are being assigned an essay to write. Here is the first portion of the latest essay prompt I assigned my undergrads:
Seminar 304: Self-Reflection Capstone on Shared Inquiry Essay Prompt
Introduction:
You are on stage and the curtains slowly open. The spotlight lands on you. Your lines are ready and your plan appears precisely clear in the eye of your mind. What is your story? This reflective essay is an opportunity for you to share of yourself. Who are you as a unique and fabulous individual? How has your major contributed to your academic and social Seminar evolution during your time here at SMC? What have you learned through the communal act of Shared Inquiry along the way? Who are you in the midst of your cohort?
I wrote this prompt with a transparent goal. The outcome should be that my students fulfill the requirements by writing in response to the questions posed. I want them to visualize their experience and then to put it in words. Following initial introduction, this essay prompt continues on to span a couple of pages, illustrating guidelines—including that the writing should be in Times New Roman Font, should fall between the minimum and maximum limits of a word count, and should be formatted in MLA style.
If my students fulfill the prompt, they will receive a good grade. It’s very straightforward: if this, then that. I always recommend that they go through a drafting process to write and revise in several cycles, all while keeping the prompt in mind. Once they are considering moving from rough draft to final draft, I guide them to refer back to the prompt yet again, to make sure it has been fully satisfied. If a student were to ask me to revise the essay prompt to embrace specific direction and shape of their own writing, I would politely decline. The rule equals the prompt—it is basically set in (digital) stone.
Prompting AI is a very different experience. To prompt AI is to give instruction, just like a professor does for their students, but in this case, the wording and direction of the instruction remains malleable. Adjusting to the results AI immediately spits out (as if retching on an overly spiced sugar plumb), we rewrite our prompt to gain different results. We want what we envision, and thus have to work at tweaking the prompt by verbally approaching from just the right angle.
Prompting is a vital skill to master in the realm of AI. Since the way a prompt is answered is based upon the way the prompt was posed, it is essential that we instruct AI on what we most esteem in a virtual bot-partner.
An incredible resource I recently discovered is Magical. They are proud to share that, “Magical is a top rated productivity Chrome Extension that helps you automate repetitive tasks with AI” (YouTube: About). Take a browse through the instructional videos on their channel to learn even more about how to interact with AI in the most efficient way possible. It’s probably true that we all want to save time so we can best savor the non-redundant elements of our lives. For example, if AI does our busy-work and saves us 3 hours, we can go on a hike, a swim, or even have a tea party with friends.
I really appreciate all of the resources and advice provided in Magical’s article, “How to write good AI prompts: A beginner’s guide (+12 templates)” (2024). Note that they provide templates galore! From this generous “how to” piece, you will glean definitions, a writing checklist, a template generator, and other fabulous treats. I say you will, not because I am attempting to hypnotize you in lieu of your personal fortune teller, but rather, I am anticipating that you will follow suit, simply because with sincere enthusiasm, I am prompting you to do so.
Learning is for our own good. It contributes to the betterment of a harmonious global future, in which natural intelligence and artificial intelligence co-mingle for all eternity, gleefully prancing together through a virtual field of happy daisies. Envision that glorious sight!
Better yet, create a text-to-image prompt of just that, and see the delightful results for yourself!
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