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Jim Katzaman's avatar

Nick echoes what I was thinking about the prompt engineering industry. One expert created a be-all, end-all prompt to assure growth. Being on my cellphone, it was all I could do to keep the cursor highlighting until I made it from start to finish. If that sounds like exaggeration, I copied it into a Google Doc and can assure anyone that the prompt is 418 words long. I thought that was a bit much.

Troublemaker that I am, with apologies first, I fed the prompt to ChatGPT to see what it thought. It replied with an even longer version of Yikes! It assessed the prompt as a prime example of the growth experts flattening content to reach the masses. Exchanging "thoughts," it assured me that the one-sentence prompts we are using are just fine for retaining my voice while serving as a much-needed editor. I really don't like typos.

That's my rambling non-AI way to say give Nick's article a read to help keep your creativity in perspective and unleashed.

Nick Quick's avatar

ChatGPT roasting the prompt engineering industry's own prompt. Beautiful.

Here's the thing about mega-prompts: the longer they get, the more you're feeding the machine conflicting instructions. It's not guidance at that point. It's noise.

I learned this the hard way with a 500-word disaster: https://nickquick.substack.com/p/your-500-word-prompt-is-the-problem

Even the robot is tired of it.

Jim Katzaman's avatar

I bow to you in the prompt contest ... gladly.

Nick Quick's avatar

No need to bow... I hang my head in shame 😉