Unlocking the AI Career Frontier: Prompt Engineering in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

There’s been a lot of recent completely justifiable panic over artificial intelligence (AI). This week CNN reported, “…the technology behind ChatGPT could make mind-reading a reality.”  A fake AI-generated photograph showing an explosion near the Pentagon posted on a “verified” Twitter account went viral and had to be debunked. Striking Writer’s Guild members demand producers pledge not to use AI to generate the content that is their talent, calling, and livelihood. AI is on the go. A couple clicks and it’s on your phone. AI is singing songs and picking stocks. Did I mention Artificial General Intelligence? This is not a joke. This is not science fiction. This is happening.

However, let’s remember that AI is powered by HI – human intelligence. We are still in charge. Until Skynet goes live, AI serves us and it’s time to take a more tempered and practical (and proactive) view of what’s going on. Soon, the feckless U.S. Congress will enter the fray with a slate of ineffective regulations written by the tech industry and we’ll all be paying through the roof to use AI. Meanwhile, AI is the wild west and it just rode into town at high noon with guns blazing.

Right now, there are two players in the new boomtown called AI. Townspeople thrust into the AI world as it roars in like a new train line, and the gunslingers of AI prompt-engineering. The beauty of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT is in their simplicity. It’s a one-step process. You ask a question – a prompt – in the same way you would ask a person and it returns content. However, results may vary. The content is only as good as the prompt. The better the prompt, the better the content. It’s simply that complex.

AI is out there for anyone to use. The more you use it, the better you become at prompting. Chances are your company is already exploring AI technology to accelerate its business goals and it’s only a matter of time until the memo goes out. Chances are greater that memo will be treated with the same warm and fuzzy feelings people get when they’re fired and asked to train their replacement before the door hits them on the way out.

Don’t Panic! Keep calm and embrace the prompt. Once your employer figures out a way AI can benefit the bottom line, like it or not you will need to learn how to use it just like any other application your company uses. Oh, and there may be mandatory training sessions and possibly a new cottage industry of certifications. The good news for the townspeople (this author included) is while Skynet may not be live, Promptnet is. The rise of AI isn’t occurring in a vacuum. Its supporting players are on every corner and in every saloon.

Want to learn the basics or master prompt engineering? YouTube, Coursera, and Udemy have many tutorials and courses to choose from. Or maybe PromptHero is more your speed, which offers courses and is also an online community. Learnprompting.org is another educational resource and online community. Just to name a few.

How about user-rated prewritten prompts? PromptHero, FlowGPT, and Prompts.chat got you covered. Want to buy and sell prompts? PromptBase and Prompt.AI are online prompt marketplaces. Just to name a few. Everybody is moving to boomtown and they’re making it easy for you to apply your human intelligence to learn artificial intelligence.

In the new rugged sexy world of AI prompt engineering, the most important buzzword is money. Money is why this previously non-existent skill is rolling off people’s tongues and into your newsfeed. BusinessInsider reported there was a job listing on Indeed.com for an AI prompt engineer with a salary of $335,000. For some reason, that got people’s attention.

Here are five facts sourced from a comprehensive overview of AI prompt engineering on PCMag.com. A link to the full article follows.

1. AI Prompt Engineers write prompts to achieve best-of-class results from AI tools and/or write copy to test and teach AI systems.

2. Currently, there are around 1000 job openings for AI-prompt engineers in the United States and around 200 of them pay six figures.  

3. The immediate outlook for AI prompt engineers is stellar, but views on their long-term prospects range from ‘prompt-engineering will be a big percentage of jobs’ to ‘prompt engineering is a specialized skill now but will become obsolete’ as AI technology evolves and the system become auto-prompting.

4. “AI whispering” is slang for prompt engineering because it’s more art form than science. Individuals with above-average writing skills have a head start. The better the prompt, the better the content.

5. Writing is rewriting. Prompt engineers hone their prompts until they achieve the best results. This requires a mastery of language, rigor, and analytical skills.

Whether a gold rush that will fizzle out or the new literary masters of the Age of AI, prompt engineers are the latest rage. You can deep dive into this topic by reading PCMag.com’s excellent primer, “Weird New Job Alert: What Is an AI Prompt Engineer.

Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.