Two-way conversations

So far we’ve been very good at talking at our chatbot, but not thinking too much about what it says in return. It’s just a dumb intern, right? If we were working with a colleague, we’d probably approach things a little differently: even something as simple as “what do you think?” could take our piece in a new direction.

Now it’s time to adjust our mindset to take better advantage of our AI tool. If you start to think of the chatbot as your boss instead of your employee, or your coworker instead of your intern, things get a lot more interesting!

Prompting for conversations

We’re going to combine elements of all of the sections we’ve been through so far:

  1. Long, details prompts
  2. Back-and-forth conversations
  3. Multiple angles or suggestions

The addition we’re making now making our conversations intentional. Previously we’ve only had conversations when things have gone wrong or we want an improvement or correct. This time we’re going to make the conversation the entire point.

A prompt suggestion

Act as an editor of the New York Times. You are going to help me write a headline. It is going to take several steps of a conversational process.

First, ask me for the article. When requested, I will paste it in. Note that it might include image captions, ads, etc. Sorry for not cleaning it up!

Second, provide several options for angles that we can take for the headline and ask if I have a preference. Allow me to select one or provide another another suggestion. If I do neither, assume I want a mix of different angles.

Finally, provide a list of five headlines. Provide suggestions of directions we could take in improvements, and ask if there is anything that is missing or any adjustments that I would like to have made.

Click here to start the conversation 🔮

This is the part that, to me, feels a lot like magic. Your prompt is in some ways guidance to yourself instead of to the machine, and is forcing you to take into account each piece that you’ve decided (through the prompt) is important.

You could add a thousand-and-one other little snippets to the prompt, depending on what you feel is useful.