The Collective Superstitions of People Who Talk to Machines

worksonmymachine.ai

8 pointsStwerner5 comments

Has it bugged any of you that everyone you talk to has their own unique prompting technique that they swear by and none of them are exactly the same but still seem to kind of work?

It reminds me a bit of the endless discussions among analog photographers regarding the different chemicals and methods that can be used for developing black and white film. Everyone is, of course, convinced that their particular development method achieves optimal results. But no-one ever really does any proper controlled tests.

An old photography handbook from the 1950s drily remarks that the proliferation of developing agents "merely increases the number of different methods by which identical results may be obtained".

I think that due to the nature of language, often the prompting technique that you use is indeed the best, for you, since it allows you to express yourself “naturally” and thus have more consistent and effective session with a model adopting a similar style and using similar abstractions when building.

Haha thank you for that quote, this is exactly how it feels.

I always make sure to say "please" and "thank you". Hopefully in case of a skynet situation I'd be looked upon favorably for being polite.

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