-
-
-
-
URL copied!
As with "Conversation Design" over the past 5 years, "Prompt Engineering" has produced a great deal of confusion in the context of interacting with ChatGPT, New Bing, Google Bard and other interfaces to Large Language Models (LLMs).
This is evident from this Harvard Business Review article entitled “AI Prompt Engineering Isn’t the Future.”
Prompt engineering is not just putting words together; first, because the words are chosen depending on the intended meaning and goals. In Linguistics and Computational Linguistics, this is not just syntax (word order), but also semantics (word meaning), pragmatics (intention, assumptions, goals, context), sociolinguistics (audience profile) and even psycholinguistics (audience-author relationship).
I absolutely agree with the author that you need to identify, define, delineate, break down, reframe and then constrain the problem and goal. However, you cannot define, delineate and formulate a problem clearly without using language or outside of language (our language defines our world and multilingual people are the most open-minded of all, as you will see from our GlobalLogic colleagues!). Prompt engineering does exactly that, finding a way to define the problem in as few steps as possible: efficiently, effectively, consistently, predictably and in a reusable/reproducible way.
That is why prompt engineering is also tightly coupled with domain ontology mapping, i.e.: the delineation of the problem space in a semantic and often visual way.
There is no "linguistics" without meaning. What the author (as a non-linguist) sees as two separate things are, in fact, one and the same.
This is why I think the traditional (for the past 40 years) term "language engineering" is the more appropriate and perennial form and most possibly the one that will outlive both myself and the HBR author!
Learn more:
Author
Top Insights
If You Build Products, You Should Be Using...
Digital TransformationTesting and QAManufacturing and Industrial
Predictive Hiring (Or How to Make an Offer...
Project Management
Top Authors
Chief Technology Officer, AI
VP of Healthcare Technology
Vice President, Client Engagement
AVP, Engineering
Consultant, Engineering
Blog Categories
Let’s Work Together
Related Content
Unlock the Power of the Intelligent Healthcare Ecosystem
Welcome to the future of healthcare The healthcare industry is on the cusp of a revolutionary transformation. As we move beyond digital connectivity and data integration, the next decade will be defined by the emergence of the Intelligent Healthcare Ecosystem. This is more than a technological shift—it's a fundamental change in how we deliver, experience, … Continue reading Prompt Engineering for Generative AI Defined →
Learn More
Crowd-Striked: Lessons Learned and Best Practices for Future Prevention
Incident Summary On July 19, 2024, CrowdStrike released a content configuration update for the Windows sensor that resulted in widespread system instability, causing Windows systems to experience the "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD). The issue was traced to a channel file named “C-00000291*.sys” included in the update, which caused system crashes upon deployment. “Channel files” … Continue reading Prompt Engineering for Generative AI Defined →
Learn More
Share this page:
-
-
-
-
URL copied!