My coworker told me I was overthinking AI prompts and she was right

I used to write these super detailed prompts for text generation models (you know, like ChatGPT) with like 5 paragraphs of instructions and examples. My coworker Priya looked over my shoulder last Tuesday and said "dude, you're trying to control every pixel, just ask it like you're talking to a smart intern." I was annoyed at first because I thought more detail = better results. But I tried her way on a project for summarizing customer feedback from our Houston office. I just said "give me the top 3 complaints from this spreadsheet in plain English" and it worked perfectly. Now I spend way less time crafting prompts and more time actually using the outputs. Has anyone else found that simpler prompts give you better results than ultra-detailed ones?

2 comments

2 Comments

adam6754d ago

Wait hold on - did you say you were writing FIVE PARAGRAPHS of instructions? That's like a whole short story every time you wanted to ask a question. I mean I've been guilty of overthinking prompts too but that's next level. I used to write these long lists of rules about what tone to use and what to avoid and all that. Now I just type whatever comes to mind and it works way better. It's almost like the AI gets confused when you give it too many directions at once.

vera_lewis4d ago

Huh, I actually see it the other way around, @adam675. Five paragraphs of instructions sounds excessive for sure, but I think most people are too vague with their prompts. They get frustrated when the AI gives them generic nonsense, but they put in zero effort upfront. A few clear rules about tone and what to avoid really do help. I just keep it to one solid paragraph with the key points, no fluff. Less is more, but "less" still needs to say something useful or you get junk back.