Last year a developer told me my AI prompts were too vague and it changed my whole workflow

I was using this AI tool to help write estimates for my roofing business. I kept getting back stuff that was way off. Finally a guy I know who codes looked at my prompts and said 'you're asking it to write a novel when you just need bullet points.' He showed me how to be super specific. Instead of saying 'write a roof estimate' I started saying 'write a 3 sentence summary of a roof repair for a 20 year old shingle roof in Ohio including material cost range.' Night and day difference. Has anyone else had to totally rethink how they talk to these things?

2 comments

2 Comments

adam_anderson61mo ago

The guy who told you that probably saved you about 40 hours of frustration. My prompts used to be like asking a magic 8 ball for stock tips instead of just saying 'hey give me the numbers.' Now I literally write them like I'm ordering a pizza with specific toppings and it works way better. Still catches me off guard when it actually listens though.

taylor.phoenix1mo ago

Hold on, hold on. I gotta push back on this a little bit. Honestly, I think there's something to be said for the magic 8 ball approach sometimes. Like, if you're too specific you're basically just doing all the creative work yourself and the AI is just spitting it back at you with better grammar. The whole point of using these things is to get surprised, to have it fill in the gaps you didn't even think of. I mean, ordering a pizza with specific toppings is boring, you know what you're getting every time. But a magic 8 ball at least has the chance to tell you something weird and unexpected that makes you go "huh, didn't think of that." Sometimes a vague prompt gets you a wild idea that you can actually work with, and that's way more valuable than a perfect, boring answer.