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Telling an Agent What You Want

Imagine you ask a friend to bring you something from the kitchen. You say: can you get me something? Your friend looks at you, confused. Something? Like what? Water? An apple? A spoon? Your homework? That is the problem with vague instructions. The helper does not know what you really want. Today we are going to practice telling an AI agent exactly what we want — so it can actually help!

An Agent Cannot Read Your Mind

An AI agent is smart, but it cannot read your mind. It only knows what you tell it. This means the instruction you give the agent is very important. A clear instruction leads to a helpful result. A fuzzy instruction leads to confusion — or the wrong result. Think of it this way. If you tell an agent: help me with my project, it does not know if your project is a science poster, a book report, a birdhouse, or a coding assignment. It might guess — but it might guess wrong! But if you tell it: help me find five facts about penguins for my science poster, the agent knows exactly what to do. It can get to work right away.

The Big Idea

When you give an AI agent an instruction, you are giving it a goal to work toward. The clearer your instruction, the better the agent can help you. Clear instruction, great result. Fuzzy instruction, confused agent.

A good instruction has three things: First — it says WHAT you want. What is the result you are looking for? Second — it says WHO or WHAT it is about. Is it about penguins? Your dog? A math problem? Third — it sometimes says HOW MUCH or HOW SPECIFIC. Do you want five facts? One sentence? A whole list? You do not always need all three, but the more detail you give, the better the agent can help you. Let us look at some examples.

Match each instruction to whether it is clear or fuzzy, and why.

Terms

Tell me five facts about penguins
Help me with stuff
Write two sentences about why the ocean is important
Do the thing

Definitions

Fuzzy — does not say what thing or what doing it means
Clear — says what you want, what it is about, and how many
Clear — says what to write, what it is about, and how long
Fuzzy — does not say what the stuff is or what help looks like

Drag terms onto their definitions, or click a term then click a definition to match.

Here is something fun to know: giving a clear instruction to an AI agent is called a prompt. A prompt is just the message you send to the agent. The better your prompt, the better the agent's response. Scientists and engineers who work with AI agents spend a lot of time thinking about how to write really good prompts. It is actually a special skill — and you are learning it right now! When you write a clear, specific instruction, you are using a skill called prompt crafting. It is one of the most useful skills you can have when working with AI.

A Word to Remember: Prompt

A prompt is the instruction you give to an AI agent. A good prompt is clear, specific, and tells the agent what you want, what it is about, and how much detail you need.

Flashcards — click each card to reveal the answer

Which instruction would help an AI agent the most?

What is a prompt?

Prompt Makeover

  1. You are a Prompt Doctor! Your job is to take fuzzy instructions and make them clear.
  2. On a piece of paper, write these three fuzzy prompts:
  3. 1. Help me
  4. 2. Write something
  5. 3. Find stuff about animals
  6. For each one, write an improved version of the prompt that makes it clear. Remember to add WHAT you want, WHAT it is about, and HOW MUCH or HOW SPECIFIC.
  7. Share your improved prompts with a partner. Have them tell you: would they know exactly what to do if they were an AI agent reading this prompt?
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