Mastering Few-Shot Prompting: Your First Steps

Lesson 4 - Learn How to Guide AI with Examples and Improve Your Results

Hey, Digital Alchemists ! 🌟

Last time, we dove into the fundamentals of Prompting and how it can help you transform your interactions with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and other LLMs. We explored what prompts are, learned key terms like prompt engineering and templates, and took a very short journey through the history of prompts.

Harnessing AI Brilliance: Unveiling the Power of Prompts

One thing I want to emphasize is that it doesn't matter whether you're a business owner, job seeker, or entrepreneur – learning AI and mastering the art of crafting effective prompts is essential for getting the best responses from tools like ChatGPT.

Now, let's get started with your lesson. One more thing: I hope you're doing your homework... lol!

Lesson 4: Mastering In-Context Learning - How Examples Unlock AI's Potential

In this lesson, let's talk about how to train AI to understand context better. We do this by providing it with "exemplars" which is just another name for examples, as we explained in our last post.

Think about it like this: if you owned a luxury detailing business, you wouldn't just allow anyone to start working on your clients' vehicles without some step-by-step instruction.

You might give them instructions like this:

1. Assess the vehicle: Carefully inspect the boat or car to identify areas that need special attention, such as stains, scratches, or oxidation.

2. Start with a thorough wash: Use high-quality, pH-neutral soap and soft microfiber mitts to clean the exterior, working from top to bottom.

3. Dry properly: Use plush microfiber towels or an air blower to dry the surface completely, preventing water spots.

Now, here's where it gets interesting.

Training an AI like ChatGPT is surprisingly similar. You can't just say, "Hey AI, clean my boat!" (Wouldn't that be nice? Scrub the deck AI!)

Instead, you give it examples, lots of them. By providing these examples, you're essentially saying, "Hey ChatGPT, this is how I want it done." This is known as in-context or "few-shot" prompting.

Here's a practical example for a local business owner like a car detailer. Imagine you want to create a detailed service description for your website. You could use few-shot learning (or in-context learning) to help the AI understand the format and style you want.

Here's a prompt you might use: