Well, I would argue that cooking recipes are algorithms, at least. In fact, they were probably the very first example of an algorithm that was given to you in your first Intro to Algorithms class.
Are there any other programming languages that are inherently as imprecise as prompting an LLM? From my knowledge, there isn't, and that seems to be a fundamental diff between prompts and code.
von Neumann taught us that code and data are the same thing and the distinction is a matter of context and perspective. Some bits are code-like and some are data-like, and some inhabit a gray area where no bright lines are to be found.
It’s provocative to claim that prompts are more like code than like data. Feels to me more like they sit in that gray area alongside things like HTML, config files, regular expressions, and spreadsheets.
In practical terms the more pressing question is what kind of tools are needed to manage prompt bits. Is it beneficial to manage prompts using traditional software engineering tooling? This post says yes. Maybe, but I can see traditional data management tooling being equally applicable.
Code Is data that expresses instructions to some processing unit for it to do tasks.
Prompts fit that description very well so I don't find that provocative or controversial at all.
The fact that traditionally the execution unit was very rigid and that the language used to express instructions was distant from human natural language is more of a consequence of an implementation rather than a fundamental distinction between code and data
> We call the direct input to the chatbot the user prompt. Another, more complex prompt is the prompt that was written to process the user prompt, which is often called the system prompt.
I thought this was called a query, and a prompt was text / symbols written by the system to prompt the user to enter a command or query.
except English or any natural language leaves too much wiggle room and LLMs have .... 0 mappings to machine code. Soon LLMs will do Feature Bloat, Surveillance and Privacy Breaches as a service - no prompt necessary, thank us very much - and then the kids won't even notice who slipped what into their metaphorical drink from that digital fountain. It won't be obvious anymore. Thanks to people saying things like "AI" and "prompts are programs".
Command lines are programs. Keystrokes on a calculator are programs. Cooking recipes are programs.
It’s deliberate antagonistic widening of a word’s imprecise meaning, possibly to get some notoriety. Academic clickbait.
Well, I would argue that cooking recipes are algorithms, at least. In fact, they were probably the very first example of an algorithm that was given to you in your first Intro to Algorithms class.
I'm sure I've seen "cooking recipes are programs" back in the late 80s…
Are there any other programming languages that are inherently as imprecise as prompting an LLM? From my knowledge, there isn't, and that seems to be a fundamental diff between prompts and code.
von Neumann taught us that code and data are the same thing and the distinction is a matter of context and perspective. Some bits are code-like and some are data-like, and some inhabit a gray area where no bright lines are to be found.
It’s provocative to claim that prompts are more like code than like data. Feels to me more like they sit in that gray area alongside things like HTML, config files, regular expressions, and spreadsheets.
In practical terms the more pressing question is what kind of tools are needed to manage prompt bits. Is it beneficial to manage prompts using traditional software engineering tooling? This post says yes. Maybe, but I can see traditional data management tooling being equally applicable.
Code Is data that expresses instructions to some processing unit for it to do tasks.
Prompts fit that description very well so I don't find that provocative or controversial at all.
The fact that traditionally the execution unit was very rigid and that the language used to express instructions was distant from human natural language is more of a consequence of an implementation rather than a fundamental distinction between code and data
Completely agree. We recently published similar thoughts: https://8factoragent.org/
> We call the direct input to the chatbot the user prompt. Another, more complex prompt is the prompt that was written to process the user prompt, which is often called the system prompt.
I thought this was called a query, and a prompt was text / symbols written by the system to prompt the user to enter a command or query.
Is this meaning only used by AI folks?
No, one meaning is "an act of encouraging a hesitating speaker," which seems OK to use in this context
This seems to have similar ideas to an post from a year ago by François Chollet: https://fchollet.substack.com/p/how-i-think-about-llm-prompt...
Any interesting examples of methods to make LLMs more "programmable?"
DSPy?
more like undocumented api requests to a remote dev box
Not if you have the weights of the model locally.
except English or any natural language leaves too much wiggle room and LLMs have .... 0 mappings to machine code. Soon LLMs will do Feature Bloat, Surveillance and Privacy Breaches as a service - no prompt necessary, thank us very much - and then the kids won't even notice who slipped what into their metaphorical drink from that digital fountain. It won't be obvious anymore. Thanks to people saying things like "AI" and "prompts are programs".
No, they’re bullshit. Stop selling bullshit.