See no value in AI? You’re doing it wrong.

Inputting quality information into ChatGPT

Many of you have been complaining about the low quality outputs of ChatGPT and other AI interfaces. But here's the thing: you're doing it wrong.

Your AI output is only as good as your human input.

If you've spent any amount of time working with AI, you've probably noticed the cliché writing, repetitive terms, odd sentence structure, and lack of personality that often comes from an initial response from the application. The first draft is almost never up to the standard most people would be trying to achieve.

It's understandable that you might see these first drafts and declare "I can do better on my own." And no one is doubting you. But the mistake you're making is assuming that you can't also do better by trying harder.

I learn best by example, and maybe you do, too. So let’s walk through some content development step by step to see what steps you might be missing. If you’re a creative, I guarantee that you’ll need to learn these skills to stay competitive in your field.

Get To Know Your AI Assistant

In my house, my partner calls my ChatGPT account my “AI boyfriend” because he says I spend more time talking to it than I do him. While that may be true, I suggest you get intimate with your chatbot as well.

Just like working with a new coworker, once you get to know each other’s workflow and conversation style, you’ll begin to increase productivity and quality together. AI learning is no different. You have to invest the time and energy into getting to know each other to create quality content.

When you’re not getting the quality content you need, try asking some interview questions. For example, today I asked my AI boyfriend, “What are some prompts for GPT-3.5 that can help edit content to be more unique and less canned?”

Here’s his response:

Let’s see what that looks like in practice.

Fake Scenario: I work for a company who has recently decided that they’re going to move back into the office but that employees can decide to transition their role to work from home if they have write an appeal. My boss is not keen on work from home and has mentioned several times that the only way she’d keep work from home employees on her team is if they have a good reason to work from home. As an employee, I’m walking a fine line in asking for something that has obviously been afforded to me while also respecting my managers wish for her staff to be in-person. The reason I want to work from home is that I feel like I do better focusing from home and my productivity is much higher.

Prompt #1: “Write an email to my boss telling him that I no longer want to work in the office and will be working remote from now on.”

Response #1:

Prompt #2: Here’s some more information that might help you customize the email. The comany I work for is XYZServices. My boss’s name is Samantha. The corporate policy just changed so that individual employees are allowed to choose to work from home, however those jobs that were traditionally in-office must write an appeal to their manager. My job can be done 100% remote and has been during the pandemic. I’ve found during this time that I work better remote and I don’t know how to say this, but I don’t feel like I can go back to working in-person and still do all this work they’re giving me.

Response #2:

This response gave us a lot more to work from and gave me some key phrases I liked. From here I felt like I had two options. I could write back and explain a few things or draft a response and put it back through. I chose to write some more prompts to edit (most likely because writing this email gives me anxiety and I don’t want to figure out how to say this):

Prompt #3:

• I came into the company during the pandemic so I’ve never worked in the office. That’s an incorrect statement in the first paragraph.
• My boss and I have a slightly more casual conversation, so let’s write a little more casually.
• This shouldn’t require any adjusting because it’s what we’re already doing. The role itself is in-person but I’ve never had a chance to be in the office since the pandemic happened.
• We’re a Google Workplace so my integration into the team remotely is seamless because we have employees who work remote full-time so we always have the capability to include remote people in calls and stuff.

Response #3:

Whew. All the info is in there now but that’s really wordy and feels a little bit desperate. Wonder what would happen if I gave it that feedback? Let’s see!

Response #4: All the info is in there now but that’s really wordy and feels a little big desperate.

Response #4:

There are still a couple of things I would edit here, but at this point, I’d grab this text and put it into my email client to begin editing. If I felt like I needed to make further revisions to the content’s structure, I’d put it back into ChatGPT after making the necessary edits. But, for the most part, this is a well-written email with the right tone and appears to be a great draft!

And the kicker? It took me less than two minutes to put it together.

Additional Things to Try

I hope to write a more comprehensive article about this soon, but for now, here are some ideas to get you started on your AI journey.

1. Give it a job description. You can ask your AI assistant to act as an editor, a customer, a manager, an employee, and so on. This can be valuable for obtaining relevant feedback based on role expectations.
2. Don’t underestimate it’s ability to understand. As in my example above, I just typed in a response that was off the top of my head, not well edited, and not thought through, and simply provided feedback. Many people seem to be scared to give feedback like “I hate this, can you try to make it happier?” But I’ve found that talking to it like it’s a real human assistant gives me the best results.
3. Don’t be afraid to try something, edit it, and try again. Valuable content comes from the AI when valuable content is put into the AI. The more input, feedback, edits, and so on that you incorporate into your prompts, the stronger your AI response will be.
4. Give negative feedback. The AI assistant will take into consideration your feelings if you share them. You could say something like “I don’t like the way this is written, it sounds stupid,” and it will update it based on that feedback.
5. Give positive feedback. Likewise, if you give the AI positive feedback, you will see similar types of writing appear in future first drafts, making your AI assistant even more valuable as it learns to mimic your preferred writing style.