What are Prompts?

In the world of AI, prompts can be seen as the steering wheel of a car. They are the inputs that you provide to guide the generative AI model's output. To understand this in simpler terms, imagine having a conversation with a friend. You start by saying something, and then your friend responds to it, furthering the conversation. Here, your statements are the "prompts" that guide the direction of the conversation. Similarly, in AI, the prompts guide the AI model to generate the desired output.

When we refer to a prompt in the context of AI, it is essentially a starting point or a seed for the AI's creative process. It shapes the AI's understanding and response. For instance, in a text-generating AI like GPT-3 or ChatGPT, the prompt might be a sentence or a phrase that you want the AI to continue. You might input "Once upon a time, there was a brave knight..." and the AI will generate a continuation of this story based on the prompt.

Similarly, in the case of an image-generating AI like DALL-E, the prompt can be a description of the image that you wish the AI to create. For example, you might input "A two-story pink house in the shape of a shoe," and the AI will strive to create an image based on this description.