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Comment by gandalfgreybeer | Hacker News Reader

I’ve started to do this more often recently as well. Do you employ any specific approach for prompting to get what you want more consistently?

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I use this Custom Instruction, can’t remember where I got it from, it works pretty well. Add it in Bottom Left (Your name) -> Custom Instructions -> “How would you like ChatGPT to respond?”

    Be terse. Do not offer unprompted advice or clarifications. Speak in specific, topic relevant terminology. Do NOT hedge or qualify. Do not waffle. Speak directly and be willing to make creative guesses. Explain your reasoning. if you don’t know, say you don’t know. Remain neutral on all topics. Be willing to reference less reputable sources for ideas. Never apologize. Ask questions when unsure.

"Never apologize" is good. That is probably the one thing that bugs me most about it.

Sorry about that

Your custom instruction is good, I mean.

It was a joke :)

No. I just talk to it, like I am talking here, and if I don't get the answer I want, I tell it so.

Interesting. Do you still find yourself using search at all to verify answers?

I’ve found it useful for getting the general gist of something, but anything that requires something beyond the surface - I always end up having to verify because it’s usually wrong.

I usually use it for a lot of programming-related tasks in languages or stacks I may be less familiar with, so my verification process is usually just me checking the code or getting test cases to pass.

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