How should I ‘speak’ to Copilot?
👾 Speak to it like it’s an alien, not a person or a search engine: Rather than using concise instructions, imagine that Copilot is smart but benefits from extra context and really explicit instructions to understand what you want it to do and how.
🎭 Your tone may influence the AI ‘persona’: You don’t need to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, but be aware that AI generates its answers using associations between words. If speak to it like a search engine (i.e. just writing a few key terms), it will act like a search engine. If you want less superficial answers, use technical language in your prompts. If you are doing a role-play, don’t ‘break character’, or Copilot will as well!
💬 Don’t worry too much about trying to write a ‘good first prompt’: In general, just tell it what you want to do, and don’t give up or start again if it doesn’t behave as expected – give it follow-up instructions!
How should I write my instructions?
Specify a role and goal:
Act as … Your goal is …
Give it constraints:
Use … Don’t … It’s essential that …
Give step-by-step instructions:
First … Wait for a response … Then … Wait for a response … Next … Wait for a response
Give examples and specify output format:
Answer in the format of the following example: …
Create a table with the following columns …
Use bullet points in your answer.
Follow up with new instructions:
That answer wasn’t good because … Try again, but this time …
How can I reduce ‘hallucinations’?
It’s important to be aware that you can’t completely prevent AI chat tools from ‘hallucinating’ (creating false information). This is due to the nature of how they work – they predict the next word in a sequence based on probability. However, there are things you can do to reduce the risk of hallucinations:
🤔 Tell Copilot that it’s okay if it doesn’t know the correct answer
Often AI chatbots are trained to always try and provide an answer, which can lead to them making things up. Try adding something like this to your prompt:
It’s okay if you’re not certain! If you don’t have enough information or several answers are possible, explain why.
⛏️ If you’re asking Copilot to work with text or data, ask Copilot to extract evidence first before performing its analysis
Asking Copilot to pull out direct quotes first, and then analyse them, helps to ‘ground’ its analysis in the real data:
First, go through the text and identify quotes about pineapple on pizza. Put these quotes in a table. Then, analyse the quotes and suggest if the author is for or against pineapple on pizza.
🚶♂️Ask Copilot to explain its reasoning step-by-step
If you ask Copilot to break down its reasoning, it can help guide it towards the correct answer:
How many ‘r’s are in the word ‘strawberry’? Explain your reasoning step-by-step.