Training AI

August 30, 2023

Nik Popli for TIME, adapted by TFK editors

AI ART We asked an AI tool to generate a “watercolor of a prompt engineer at work.” It gave us these images and the ones below. What do you notice about them? Are you surprised by any of them? ILLUSTRATIONS BY MIDJOURNEY FOR TIME FOR KIDS

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There’s a new kind of AI job. It pays high salaries. And it doesn’t require a degree in coding.

Companies are looking for people who can craft prompts prompt an instruction that is used as a starting point (noun) The teacher gave her students a writing prompt to get them started. . They’re called prompt engineers. The prompts are helpful. They’re used to train AI programs. Prompt engineers work on generative generative having the ability to create or produce (adjective) The generative AI tool produced images and video. AI. ChatGPT is an example of generative AI. It creates text and other content in response to a user’s request. Prompt engineers train AI. They teach it to give better responses.

Anna Bernstein is a prompt engineer. She works at Copy.ai. She writes prompts. Then she feeds them into AI tools. This helps the AI make text. The text has more accurate information. It has better tone.

Bernstein joined Copy.ai in 2021. “There [weren’t] many of us prompt engineers,” she says. “It really felt like it was just me.” That was about a year before ChatGPT went viral. It could generate writing. It could answer questions. Prompt engineering took off. It’s now a hot tech job.

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Job Surge

AI tools need training. Their results are not always correct. So companies are looking for prompt engineers.

Anthropic is a tech company. It’s looking for a prompt engineer. Applicants must “love solving puzzles.” Boston Children’s Hospital is in Massachusetts. It’s looking for a prompt engineer, too.

Rob Lennon is an expert on the topic. He teaches people the skills needed for the job. “People are clamoring for this knowledge,” Lennon says.

Will It Last?

Some say the need for this job will burn out. Ethan Mollick is an associate professor. He works at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s not clear that prompt engineering is going to matter long-term,” he says.

The high salaries may not last. “In six months, 50,000 people will be able to do that job,” Lennon says. “The value of this knowledge is greater today than it will be tomorrow.”