At my recent AI workshop, a participant came up to me and said she was told in another workshop that Google Gemini will now give better responses if she writes prompts that are polite and kind to the AI.
I had to hold back what I wanted to say (“That’s pure BS”). Instead, I said: “There’s actual research showing that being nice or harsh to AI doesn’t matter in terms of the quality of output.” She didn’t look convinced, but our conversation gave me the idea for this post about common prompting fallacies.
MYTH 1: BEING POLITE TO GEN AI YIELDS BETTER RESULTS
If you understand that LLMs are just predicting the next word at high speed, then you will also know that they have no soul or feelings. They can’t possibly feel encouraged or hurt by our prompts. They are also quite sycophantic in nature, always trying to sound agreeable, probably so that you’ll pay for their monthly subscription.
FACT: Just get to the point with AI, no need to be nice or nasty.
MYTH 2: WE CAN ASK GEN AI NOT TO HALLUCINATE
Someone asked me: “Can I avoid hallucinations if I type a prompt ‘Do not hallucinate?'” I said you can, but Gen AI will then make up a reply saying it will comply. Hallucinations are unavoidable in Gen AI, due to its underlying technological structure. Yes, newer AI models hallucinate less, but don’t let the random hallucination cost you your job or reputation.
FACT: Always check every sentence and number that is generated. Never trust Gen AI to get things 100% correct but don’t get upset with it either. It doesn’t mean to lie.
MYTH 3: I MUST ALWAYS WRITE A LONG AND COMPLICATED PROMPT.
Many people dread writing prompts because they’ve been told to do “prompt engineering” and write very long paragraphs for good results. A long prompt definitely works if you have structured your thinking well but it is insufferably tedious. I prefer to write short prompts, iterate on them, then get AI to combine the prompts into a long “master prompt” for future use. Or I get AI to generate a long prompt and edit that for my needs.
FACT: Short or long prompts both work, but think clearly, write concisely, and provide enough context or reference materials.