# What's in a prompt?

By [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2) · 2023-01-25

---

Shakespeare may have once asked, “what’s in a name?”

Today, he may ask “what’s in a prompt?”

As ChatGPT sweeps the world, the nature of work and the skills required to be successful change with i

In [“Get ready for a whole new future led by AI technology”](https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/get-ready-for-a-whole-new-future-led-by-ai-technology-11673371348138.html), the author, an economics professor at a management school in India writes:

> Providing a good prompt is vital for the quality of a chatbot’s output, for example, so knowing what to ask and how to ask would become critical. Several such technologies can talk to each other, while we need to know how best to orchestrate it. This means resourcefulness will be a crucial skill.

The other skill that he thinks is going to be big and come back into vogue?

Humanities.

I’ve long been a believer in the power of the humanities to facilitate critical cross-discipline thinking.

Now, it seems like the shift that went hard towards coding as a skill is moving the other way, since the AI can create the code.

> Tomorrow’s core competencies will also require aptitudes and training that differ. Resourcefulness, integrative thinking and articulation are likely to become far more valuable and necessary than basic coding and programming.

I was speaking to my sister-in-law, a professor, who was distraught over the idea that the essay as a means of teaching critical thinking and grit may no longer be available to her.

The arrival of ChatGPT, like disruptive technologies before it, is going to have multiple implications on the way we live our lives.

My general philosophy is that you can’t put the genie back into the bottle. It’s a Darwinian moment and the challenge is to adapt.

The next skill: Great prompt writing.

---

*Originally published on [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/what-s-in-a-prompt)*