Now is the time for grimoires

Rather than collecting and processing data, "the most useful thing ... in this AI-haunted moment: creating grimoires, spellbooks full of prompts that encode expertise", but not those resulting from "elaborate “prompt engineering”... [as] prompt engineering is overrated... the prompts of experts ... encode our hard-earned expertise in ways that AI can help other people apply... to gift others with your own abilities."

All you actually need is to "build a good prompt ... asking the AI to do something in back-and-forth dialogue, combined with trial and error, and a few small tricks". For example, whereas “explain XX like I am five” is not a good prompt - tutors need to "interact with the student, forcing them to make an effort, pay attention to the material being learned, and connect what they are learning to old knowledge". Instead, Mollick provides a far more detailed tutor prompt (372 words) which "takes a student through a learning experience based on the research on tutoring... designed for anyone to use, because it is interactive, asking questions".

How to build your spellbook:

• be an expert
• spent time with AI
• have a clear view of what you want, to keep the AI focused on it.

"the elements of a good expert prompt:

• Role: Tell the AI who it is ...
• Goal: Tell the AI what you want it to do...
• Step-by-step instructions... [eg] Chain of Thought prompting, gives the AI an example of how you want it to reason before you make your request ... [or just] give it step-by-step directions...
• Few-shot prompting, where you give the AI examples of the kinds of output you want to see ...
• Add personalization. Ask the user for information to help tailor the prompt for them"
• constrain the Ai from undesirable behaviour "that may come up in your testing"

Conclusion: "You can be the world AI expert in whatever narrow field of expertise you want to apply AI, because no one else has yet figured out that use."