Every word counts.
Communication is the key between humans.
And in the human-machine conversations?
The words have weight.
Plain Text Machine Code
Prompts are text for the AI.
What is the capital city of Australia?
Or something like:
What are the key moments in Albert Einstein’s life.
Plain English for the machine.
The machine reads it letter by letter.
It doesn’t understand the text.
It finds a context from its previous training.
The clearer the context – the sharper the answer.
Every prompt is a blade. Some cut. Others tear.
Multiple Slits For More Precision
GPT models are “chats”.
It’s not a web search.
Leverage this capability.
Build the conversation iteratively.
Revisit.
Clarify.
Explain.
One long prompt is just noise.
Stick to clear cuts – unseen, precise, deliberate.
One Chat – One Mission
Again: clarity.
One chat. One topic. One mission.
Change topic in mid-conversation – you create entropy.
Confuse the AI.
This will cause mistakes in the answers.
Shifts – and you lose control of the edge.
Just like Linux tools: One Chat. One Mission. One Clean Cut.
Format And Tone – The Shape Of The Blade
AI can wear any mask.
Friendly teacher.
Strict tutor.
Academic assistant.
You have to tell it the tone. The style.
The output format.
What do you need?
- Plain text output?
- A PDF file?
- An image file?
- Markdown format?
You don’t state it – you won’t get it.
The blade takes the shape you define – or it cuts in ways you don’t expect.
Final Thoughts
AI is not good or bad.
It’s trained on human data. Your data.
It’s as good as your questions to it.
Approach it strategically.
Phrase carefully.
You sharpen the blades – the prompt.
The AI delivers the cut. The rest is silence.
Every word counts at the start. Every cut matters at the end.
Tom's IT Cafe 