There are no wrong questions. Or sometimes we say there are no dumb questions.
You know this isn’t true. That’s just something we say, albeit with good intentions.
Ever been frustrated getting answers from your toddler? What about your spouse? How about getting what you want from Google?
Last week, I needed Google to help me solve a problem. I needed to verify (or refute) the validity of an inspection sticker on a truck we just bought (because I got taken). I had an ID number from the sticker, but I didn’t know the terminology or the right question to ask. I needed to do some prompt engineering. Here’s what I tried:
“pa state inspection licenses” — no
“pa state inspection licensees” — no
“find pa state inspection by knowing the ID” — aha!
That gave me something that looked interesting: Safety Station List by County for the Web
That was the right question.
When you ask the right question, you get what you want. Sometimes that’s information back to you (aside: as I suspected, the ID from the sticker was not on the list — the sticker is fraudulent). Sometimes the question passes the information in the other direction. And sometimes, the right question inspires, motivates our caring engine, and sets us on the journey.
Prompt engineering has been around since a human asked the first question. We invented the name recently, but we’ve been engineering prompts since we opened our mouths.
Who is a good prompt engineer? Someone who asks the right question.
