There is an art and a science behind creating useful prompts for AI tools like ChatGPT.
Avoiding the items listed below might be the key to getting the results you want.
Your prompt is ambiguous
Something is ambiguous when it can have more than one meaning or interpretation. Human languages are ambiguous all the time. Machines don’t do well with ambiguous directions. If there is more than one way to interpret something and no direction on which way to go, most AI tools will pick an interpretation at “random” (it’s not really random, but the way it works is too complicated for this post).
The more options it has to choose from, the more likely it is that it will not interpret it the way you intended.
Your prompt has too many steps
It is usually more effective to have one task at a time. If that isn’t possible, then make it as small a number as you can.
You can always use follow-up prompts if you want to do multiple things.
Your prompt is too long
There are character limits for your input prompts. If your prompt is too long, it won’t be processed.
The limit depends on the tool and model that you are using (and they change), so I won’t list numbers here.
Calculating the response takes too long
If your ask is too complicated or has too many steps, the AI tool can time out. This means that it exceeded the set amount of time that each response can take.
Reduce the complexity of your prompt or split it up into fewer steps (ideally one).
You’ve used up your prompts for the day
Most AI tools limit how much any single account can use them in a time period (usually per day but not always). This applies to paid accounts too.
It’s usually because it is very resource-intensive to run these tools and most of the companies (even the big ones) lose money on these tools. $20/month doesn’t come close to covering what heavy use accounts cost the companies.
Make sure you check what your account limits are and only use the tools when it makes sense.
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