The Bard Who Accidentally Discovered Prompting
Act 1 - The strange object in the room
For the last 4 nights, Shakespeare was working on his most intense play - Hamlet. He had been continuously rewriting, redrafting the lines in the play - and the playwright had found himself consumed in a deep lethargy. Probably it was a good time to just stretch and catch a good night's sleep.
Just then, a blinding light flashed in the room - like the sun had mistaken the midnight for noon and the playwright was suddenly off from his chair in disbelief. What was that sunlight in the dead of the night? (A poet can be poetic even in the harshest of the situations)
When the brightness faded, a lone figure stood in the middle of the room. He appeared human enough, though his attire belonged to no kingdom Shakespeare had ever known. His coat was stitched with impossible precision, his boots gleamed without a speck of mud, and upon his head rested a curious hat that looked as though fashion itself had travelled through time.
The stranger smiled. "Good evening, Master Shakespeare."
The playwright rose cautiously, still trying to gather this thoughts. "I should inform you, that burglars generally arrive with less ceremony."
The stranger chuckled. "This is not a burglary. I'm here to offer you some assistance with your play."
From beneath his arm, the visitor produced an object unlike anything Shakespeare had seen before. It was impossibly thin. Impossibly smooth. And entirely white. He placed it gently upon the desk. The surface suddenly came alive. A rectangle of light appeared, followed by six words.
Let AI help you write your next play.
Shakespeare stared. It had a strange layout of blocks which had English alphabets. But not in the right order. Looks like several nights of incomplete rest has made my mind go on a long journey of imagination. I can't comprehend what my eyes are seeing.
The playwright was in disbelief on the weird arrangement of the keys - and pointed it out. "These letters seem arranged by a drunk typesetter." "On the contrary, Master Shakespeare. Thousands shall one day complain of this arrangement. Here, write something here", the gentleman said calmly, pointing to the box right below the heading.
The playwright reached out to his quill, but the stranger stopped him before the playwright could write words on that bright rectangle. "You need to press on those English alphabet keys to write. Try it out." The playwright stared at him, more confused, if the sleep deprivation had gone to extreme lengths. But there's more to this strange journey.
The Bard of Avon pressed the first key he found - "Q". It instantly popped up on the screen. The playwright jumped from his chair, as if he had witnessed a magician at his very best. The stranger patted on his shoulder. "Write to it as if you are asking any friend for some help. If you want to erase the last characters, just press on the key which says 'Backspace'. Once you have written your question, press that key which says 'Enter', and witness what your new friend has to say."
There was another beam of light, and the stranger was gone. But the strange white object still was there on the table in front of the playwright - waiting for the next character.
Act 2 - What did I just witness?
The confused playwright hit the Backspace key to erase the "Q". There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Sometimes, the playwright liked to quote his own lines - but this seemed too familiar with what his vision had been showing him.
"How about I ask this strange object - write me a tragedy play script? That stranger mentioned that this object is like my friend - maybe I should try asking the same question I joke about with Richard Burbage - at the Mermaid Tavern."
Out of curiosity, the Bard of Avon pressed the keys slowly and wrote the question - Write a tragedy play script for me. And with a exhausted sigh, pressed the key which said "Enter".
Enter - into a different reality? Strange way of naming a key.
The bright rectangle started to fill up with words, paragraphs, and dialogues. The playwright was dumbfounded. What did I just witness? The words arrived faster than any scribe in London could have copied them. Then, he proceeded to read through the dialogues - and was disappointed. The tragedy had a king, a queen, a castle, some betrayals and a sad ending. "Even Richard would not have written this. The stranger has really befooled me with this strange object.". Suddenly, a thought ran across his mind.
Wait - Richard writes better than this, only because I told him what kind of tragedy I want. I would give him an idea, a premise and he would come up with the dialogues. Probably, I expected too much out of my new friend. Let me try a new question.
He proceeded to key in his next question - "Write me a tragedy of a grieving prince cursed by his father's ghost to seek bloody revenge, where hesitating intellect battles the urge to kill." The object began to speak, not with a voice, but with words that appeared faster than any hand could have written them. He went through the script - a little more intrigued.
Interesting. This object understood what kind of premise I wanted, and it wrote something in the direction that I gave it. This curious companion is no playwright at all. It is merely an actor awaiting direction. Give it poor instructions and it performs poorly. Give it purpose, and it remembers its role. This is merely obeying what I ask it to do. But, currently it has written the tragedy like any other playwright would do - not in my signature style - for which audience pays their tickets for. How do I make it understand how I write? Maybe if I give it an example dialogue or an act, it should probably understand.
With a renewed vigor in the exhausted eyes, he proceeded to type in word by word one scene from the last play - Julius Caesar. It took the better part of an hour, but for the first time that night, Shakespeare felt awake. Then, with a hint of hope, he pressed the Enter key. Now, the playwright was in for a surprise.
This is just brilliant. This object from the future has just given me an idea on how I can complete my play. Just, it needed a few nudges and a way to understand - and it produced a script - good for starting my next premise for Hamlet.
Four centuries later, computer scientists would give names to the strange experiments Shakespeare performed that sleepless night.
The first question he asked the machine with nothing more than "Write me a tragedy" would come to be called Zero-shot Prompting.
The second, where he described the grieving prince, the ghost and the conflict in detail, wasn't a different prompting technique at all. It was simply a better prompt. Better instructions often produce better answers.
Only when he showed the machine a scene from Julius Caesar did he venture into what we now call few-shot prompting teaching the machine by example before asking it to write.
History remembers William Shakespeare as one of the greatest playwrights who ever lived. It might also have remembered him as the world's first prompt engineer.
I hope that was a good read - and folks could remember prompting better with the experiments of Shakespeare. More personalities explaining AI concepts soon would follow - please keep an eye out for them too!