😺 6 expert prompting tips

Welcome, humans.

If you haven’t been sucked into Tech Twitter rabbit holes (and really, why would you), you might’ve missed the very public sparring between two big AI names—Elon Musk and Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist.

It’s both amusing and a bit scary to see two of the most influential figures in AI, who together are some 115 years old, trying to outdo each other by shouting into the void.

Gents, either step into the ring and settle this old-school, gladiator-style, or better use your valuable time making sure AI doesn’t turn Twitter—and us—into relics!

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

• We share 6 expert tips for crafting better prompts.
• All ChatGPT users now have access to GPTs.
• OpenAI launched a version of ChatGPT tailored for universities.
• Perplexity is in talks to raise $250M at a $3B valuation!

6 strategies for more effective prompts.

2 AI consultants, 2 AI team leaders, 1 AI educator, and 1 AI researcher walk into a (virtual) bar—what do they come up with?

A very detailed guide on best practices for working with AI, covering how to set up human-in-the-loop workflows, judge an AI’s output, when to choose fine-tuning versus RAG, and more.

Worth your time.

For now, let’s dive into their top prompting tips—here are a few you can implement right away:

1. n-shot Prompts + In-Context Learning: Show the model multiple examples of the task to better align its responses with your expectations.
   • Tip: Use at least 5 examples to help the model generalize better.
2. Chain-of-Thought (CoT) Prompting: Push the model to explain its reasoning before delivering the final answer.
   • Example: Summarize a meeting.
     • Steps: "First, list the key decisions and follow-up items. Then, check that the details are factually consistent with the transcript. Finally, synthesize the key points into a concise summary."
3. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): Feed the model relevant text snippets it can reference in its responses to improve accuracy and minimize errors.
   • Tip: Tell the model to prioritize using these snippets.
4. Structured Input and Output: Format your inputs and expected outputs in a clear, structured way.
   • Example: Use JSON or Markdown to help the model understand the relationships between different pieces of information.
5. Specific Instructions: Give detailed instructions to guide the model.
   • Tip: Include steps or rules in your instructions to make them more specific and reduce errors.
   • Examples: Write a business email.
     • Prompt: "Start with a greeting, introduce yourself, state the purpose of the email, provide details, and end with a call to action and closing."
6. Small, Focused Prompts: Break down complex tasks into smaller, simpler prompts that each handle one specific part of the task.
   • Tip: Rather than asking the model to summarize an entire meeting, ask it first to extract key points and then to summarize those points.
   • Example: Summarize a research paper.
     • Step 1: "Extract key points from the introduction."
     • Step 2: "Summarize the methodology."
     • Step 3: "Summarize the results and conclusion."

Read the full report here!

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Around the Horn.

• All free ChatGPT users now enjoy these GPT-4o features: browsing, vision, data analysis, file uploads, and GPTs.
• Perplexity is in talks to raise $250M at a $3B valuation.
• OpenAI shut down five accounts used by foreign governments to manipulate public opinion.
• Google claims it has improved AI Overviews after catching flak for its bizarre responses.

Treats To Try.

1. ChatGPT Edu is a (NEW) version of ChatGPT built for universities to weave into the classroom.
2. Autobiographer is an AI service that chats with you about your life and transforms your convos into a written story.
3. Exactly.ai helps artists retain control over their artwork’s IP and also monetize their designs.
4. Iris.ai is an AI tool that summarizes scientific research (raised $6M).

Intelligent Insights.

A roundup of the top AI articles we stumbled upon this week!

• Facebook Parent’s Plan to Win AI Race: Give Its Tech Away Free (link).
• The Great AI Challenge: We Test Five Top Bots on Useful, Everyday Skills (link).
• How AI will reinvent Marketing (link).
• How does AI impact my job as a programmer? (link).
• Apple’s Plan to Protect Privacy With AI: Putting Cloud Data in a Black Box (link).
• France is an AI hub, but a wrinkle in tax policy is holding it back (link).

A Cat's Commentary.

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