Whether you’re a primary tech-focused person or someone somewhat tech savvy, you have more than likely heard about the craze of artificial intelligence (AI). It’s possible that you might’ve even dabbled utilizing AI for personal use. But, especially for beginners to the basics of AI, getting the technology to work properly can be a bit of a challenge. As a result, even the most powerful and beneficial AI’s will be useless if you are unable to properly prompt the machine to generate the responses you need. So how can we make sure to get the most out of AI?
For commercial use, this problem gets a bit more intricate. A whopping majority of IT professionals believe that they are equipped to use and prompt AI. However, out of this 81% of IT professionals, only 12% actually have the skills to effectively prompt and receive the desired responses from AI.
The Rise of AI Prompt Engineering
However, despite this clear discrepancy, the need for AI prompt engineering continues to press on and skyrocket. AI prompt engineering is the science of structuring an instruction that a generative AAI can then interpret and follow. As of 2024, as many as 2 in every 3 leaders simply would not hire someone if they did not have any AI prompt skills. But, as many as 70% of global workers need to upgrade their AI skills and 60% of IT decision makers claim AI is their largest skill gap. So, what are the main factors that are preventing supply from meeting demand?
Many IT professionals know the basics of AI, but lack the depth of knowledge to effectively use AI for its full capabilities. A key skill often lacked is the ability to leverage trusted data sources that ensure that first-party data is still secure and customer privacy is maintained. Similarly, many workers simply lack the ability to effectively use and get the most value from generative AI. This all culminates in an estimated 50% hiring gap between AI jobs and AI job roles, which further emphasizes the importance of thoroughly learning AI.
What Techniques Can Prompt Engineers Use to Get the Most Out of AI?
One of the main techniques used is ‘chain-of-thought’ structuring. Rather than simply providing the answer to a prompt, it tries to provide it in stages, like doing steps in a complicated math problem. Prompt engineers also utilize ‘least to most prompting’, which involves giving AI the least amount of assistance when correcting and guiding it towards finding the right answer with its previous knowledge. In a similar vein, prompt engineers use ‘generated knowledge prompting’ which pushes AI to use data from previous responses in order to more accurately answer future questions for a specific user’s prompts. With these types of techniques, the AI is continually advancing, learning, and evolving. Not only that, but it is much more intuitive as it can explain how it determines the answers to user questions and makes it easier for users to correct any incorrect assumptions by the AI.
There are more specialized techniques for AI image and video generators, since traditional prompting techniques are ineffective. For instance, you can prompt with ‘negative prompting’ by specifically providing things that AI cannot generate in an image or video. They also take advantage of textual inversion, which provides an AI with a set of training images. Then, once it has learned, it generates images that are intentionally similar to the images provided. The point of these types of prompts are not to create things that are entirely new, but rather to enhance things you or your company has already created.
Conclusion
With the wealth of techniques and strategies, it can be quite daunting to try and keep track of and best utilize all of them. Fortunately, there has recently emerged online resources that can both train new prompt engineers and re-educating experienced prompt engineers alike. Online course providers like YU Global offer a plethora of courses for both broad and specific AI skill sets. For instance, beginners can take ‘Intro to AI’ and ‘Advanced Prompt Engineering’. For seasoned prompt developers, there is AI for financial management, marketing, and excel. They even have AI courses for broader topics, such as human resources, project management, and entrepreneurship.
Regardless of your skill level or where you work, it’s likely that an AI course could greatly benefit you. Courses can teach you prompt engineering education in as little as 6 weeks. In order to put more skills on your resume and future proof your job, taking advantage of YU Global’s AI courses are the best way to master AI prompting.
