WSJ via MSN: “Want to get the best answers out of an AI? It’s all in how you talk to it. Tell it, for instance, to pretend it is Albert Einstein. Or that somebody’s life depends on the response. Or that it needs to stay focused on its goals. Prodding an artificial-intelligence chatbot is nothing like doing a Google search. Instead, it is like having a conversation with a book-smart person who needs coaxing—sometimes very indirect or bizarre coaxing—to give the most creative and effective answers to questions. The trouble is, nobody knows why AI responds to those strange prompts in the ways it does—not even the people who created large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot. That has led to experiments and guesswork to find the approaches that work best. Some researchers even ask the chatbots themselves for tips on how to talk to them. Below are some creative ways researchers have found to elicit better chatbot responses. These aren’t universal truths; not all of them work with all chatbots or with all types of questions. But they are good places to begin…”

WSJ via MSN: “Whenever I speak to a group about artificial intelligence, whether they be business executives or students, I ask them about their AI use, and I am always surprised that only a handful of individuals have spent the time needed, with the right AI systems, to give them a sense of how useful this tool can be. Most seem to believe that, if they wait, someone will give them exact instructions about how AI can help them. For them, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that there is no instruction manual out there that will tell you how to best apply AI to your specific job or interests. That’s a shame, because AI is good at some tasks and bad at others in ways that are difficult to predict if you haven’t used it a lot. The good news is that, by using it for only 10 hours, you can figure out the best way for you to move ahead. Ten hours may seem like a lot, but just think about how many hours a day you spend on social media or watching television…”