Google has a new course designed to help you improve your AI prompt game.
Titled ‘Prompting Essentials’ and launched in partnership with the online learning platform Coursera, the course includes topics such as creating effective prompts for everyday work tasks and using prompts to accelerate presentation building and data analysis. Contains lessons about using generative AI tools to provide effective advice. For example, Google advocates a “5-step prompting framework” for querying generative AI tools.
Theoretically, it will take you 10 hours to complete this course. Upon completion, students will earn a Google Prompting Essentials certificate.
This coursework is aimed at people who are relatively new to prompts, rather than technical professionals who are interested in using generative AI tools for complex tasks such as coding. In a press release accompanying the course’s launch, Google cited recent Salesforce research showing that only 1 in 10 people have any AI skills. In other words, everyone has to start somewhere.
Of course, once you understand how to use prompts, you may want to use them for more specialized cases, such as writing effective resumes and cover letters. In these cases, you often end up concatenating multiple prompts to get what you want, then double-checking and proofreading the final output yourself.
Whatever your interest in generative AI, always remember that these tools are not foolproof. You should always fact-check the output of a prompt, especially if you have asked a highly technical question of the tool. Generative AI answers often sound reliable, but important details can be missed.
And if you’re a technology professional who has mastered the intricacies of generative AI, you can use that position to teach your non-technical colleagues how to best use the technology. As with any highly technical concept, always use clear language and encourage questions. It is also important to emphasize the responsible use of generative AI.