A year ago, I posted on LinkedIn cautioning against the unchecked use of AI, specifically ChatGPT, to write personal and professional content.
I argued that it was often obvious, incorrect, illogical and unfeeling.
In 24 hours, the post had reached 25,000 people, with 70 reactions.
I’d describe them as Marmite. Some loving the post, some hating it, but all emotionally involved.
Why does this new(ish) technology interest us so much?
AI prompting training Glasgow
It’s something we’re debating more and more as we launch an AI course of our own in Glasgow: AI prompting training.
Principle One: Turns out ‘Copilot’ is exactly the right name
The basis of the course is simple: if you treat AI like Google, you’ll get poor results.
If you learn how to address and prompt AI, it’ll fly the plane for you.
Take the following search on Copilot:
“How can I make my workplace safer?”
Without context on who I am, or why I’m doing this, Copilot can only give me generic advice.
Focus the prompt and everything changes:
“You are a Health and Safety Manager within a training organisation in Glasgow. Your team works from home, in the office and on the road. Maximum 500 words, to be sent to all staff”.
To paraphrase the well-known idiom: put good stuff in and get good stuff out.
Principle Two: Apply the Golden Rules
Your AI output is only as good as the input.
And if you’ve been on a Pink Elephant training course in Glasgow, Edinburgh or around the UK, you’ll know all communication has to be:
- Simple
- Committed
- Positive
- Direct
- Empathetic
If I add in the following phrase:
“Write me a policy that’s easy to understand”
It’ll focus the results even further:
“We are committed to providing a safe, healthy and supportive working environment for everyone”.
Similarly, if I know about Pink Elephants (unnecessary negatives), I’ll know that a negative prompt will gain a negative response.
Consider the following prompt:
“Make it clear that the policy exists so nobody gets injured and we have no accidents”.
Surprise, surprise, the policy will mirror that language.
“Our goal is simple: no injuries, no accidents and no harm”.
Let’s sound the klaxon on that one.
Why are we talking about injuries and accidents? Let’s talk about safety; everyone going home safe every day.
Principle Three: structure, structure, structure
The AI I’ve used has a habit of ‘burying the lead’.
It’s a journalistic faux-pas. Your audience needs to hear the most important thing first, otherwise they’re likely to switch off.
And if you’re failing to get to the point, it’s likely your report will go unread.
Our AI training courses are designed to help you give the right prompts so your reports read more like news articles.
So people read them and act upon them.
Then there’s sentence structure.
Certain AI models have been trained on classical texts and older business reports, meaning their default sentence structure is antiquated.
It’s often the reason we can tell AI text from authentic copy.
Our AI training courses help you to write in subject – verb – object.
And to apply good habits of sentence length. Our recommendation is an average of 15 and a maximum of 25.
Again, these AI prompts are critical.
So you sound more like a human.
AI Training
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Let us help you navigate the minefield.
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Photos in AI Training by Pink Elephant Communications.
AI Training was written by Andrew McFarlan and edited by Maxine Montgomery.
