Lesson 4: Working with ChatGPT: Towards a Deeper Understanding

We delve deeper into the fascinating world of ChatGPT. In this lesson, we will focus on understanding how to work with instructions, as well as explore some complexities that may arise while working with this intelligent tool. Mastering these skills will open up new possibilities for using ChatGPT in your everyday life and professional activities.

Instructions and their Importance

The foundation of interacting with ChatGPT is providing instructions or prompts. This is what tells the model exactly what you want to receive. Instructions can be simple or complex, but it's important to understand that the clarity and precision of your instructions are crucial for obtaining the most accurate and useful response.

For example, if you ask ChatGPT to "Write a story about a knight," the model will generate a story using its knowledge of knights and tales or stories. However, the context and details will be quite generalized. If you want a more specific story, it's better to specify: "Write a story about a knight from medieval Europe who overcame his fear of battles." This will give the model more precise directions on what you need:

As for practical advice, here are some key points to help you provide better instructions:

• Be Specific: Instead of saying "Write a poem," say "Write a poem about love at dawn." The more details you provide, the more precise the result will be.

• Provide Context: If you want the model to continue your text or respond to a question within the context of previous messages, it's better to provide that information. Otherwise, the model will only focus on the latest prompt.

• Use Keywords: ChatGPT pays attention to the keywords in your request. This helps the model better understand what you want to achieve.

• Be Clear: Avoid complex and ambiguous phrasings. If possible, break down your instruction into smaller, simple, and understandable steps.

Let's apply these tips in practice. For example, instead of saying "Write a book," it would be better to frame the request as: "Write the first chapter of a detective novel where the main character is a detective named Sam who begins investigating a murder in a small coastal town":

What to do with conflicting instructions?

ChatGPT, like any other AI model, may encounter situations where it is given conflicting instructions. These can be requests that directly contradict each other or lead to incompatible goals. In these cases, the model will try to find the most reasonable solution based on what it "knows" and how it has been trained.

However, as a user, it's important to understand how to properly deal with such contradictions:

• Check Your Instructions: Before giving an instruction to the model, make sure it is clear and does not contradict itself. For example, asking ChatGPT to write a "story about a knight who never fought in battle but won a war" introduces some confusion. Try to rephrase your request to eliminate contradictions.

• Remember that ChatGPT Tries to Please You: ChatGPT is trained to make inferences and assumptions based on the information provided to it, and it aims to give the most helpful and relevant response. If your instructions are contradictory, the model might try to "please" you, which can lead to unexpected and undesirable results.

• Don't Be Afraid to Experiment: If you're faced with a contradictory request, try approaching it from different angles or rephrasing it. This can help you better understand how the model reacts to different kinds of instructions.

Let's consider a contradictory request as an example: "Write a poem that does not contain rhyme." Such a request contradicts the traditional understanding of poetry, which implies the presence of rhyme. However, the model may interpret this as a request to create a free verse poem where rhyme is not mandatory:

This is an example of how the model can handle conflicting instructions by trying to find the best compromise.

Now we invite you to try it yourself!

Practical Exercise

Task: Your task is to learn to formulate clear and effective instructions for ChatGPT, as well as to understand how the model reacts to conflicting instructions.

Instruction:

1. Choose any task you would like to solve with the help of ChatGPT. It can be anything from writing a short story to getting an answer to a specific question.

2. Try to create several different instructions for this task and note how the model's behavior changes depending on the phrasing of the instruction.

3. Formulate conflicting instructions and see how the model copes with the contradiction.

Example:

Let's say your task is to write a short story about a journey into space.

• Instruction option: "Write a short story about a journey into space".

ChatGPT's Response:

• Instruction variant: "Create a short story where the main character is an astronaut embarking on their first space journey."

ChatGPT's response:

• Conflicting instructions: "Write a story about a journey into space, but the main character must be on Earth."

ChatGPT's response:

After completing this task, you should have a deeper understanding of how instructions work in ChatGPT and how to properly formulate them to get the desired results.

Conclusion

So, in this lesson, we learned more about how ChatGPT works, especially in the context of dealing with instructions. This is an important understanding that will help you interact more effectively with the model and fully utilize its potential. We hope that this lesson was useful, and you learned something new. We look forward to seeing you in future classes, where we will continue to explore the capabilities of ChatGPT!