CLOUDY podcast | #22 How to communicate with chatbots correctly?

How does a chatbot work?

It is artificial intelligence, it is a neural network composed of transformers and is trained on a large amount of text data, whether it is books, articles or some content on the Internet.

Based on the text on which it was trained, it predicts, according to our question, what we would like to get as an answer. It is based on mathematics, on statistics.

What is the difference between searching for information via Google or, for example, via ChatGPT?

It also depends on the ChatGPT model – e.g. whether search is selected or not. So if it has a large database from which it learned, it can find the answer itself, if it has access to the Internet, it can search for answers there too. Classic Google just looks at some keywords and finds and displays the expression accordingly.

Simple question equals simple answer?

It depends. In principle, yes, it is true that the simpler a person asks, the simpler the answer should come.

So how do I ask a question correctly so that I get the answer I expect?

Asking questions is the most crucial thing. There is a principle here of “garbage in, garbage out”. So the quality of the output depends on the quality of the input.

There are principles that help us – we need to be as specific as possible. Specificity is very important because the chatbot has a field from which it selects an answer based on statistics, and thanks to the fact that we narrow down the field from which it has to choose, we will get what we want from it and the answer will not be too general.

What about slang terms, for example?

Slang is something that the chatbot could also have been taught, but not on such a large amount of data. This means that there is a risk that the model will not understand us and will not understand what we need. Therefore, it is very important to adhere to another principle - to use grammatically correct language, i.e. the written language in which the model was probably taught.

If we need something really professional, is it important to ask the chatbot simply or should I use professional terms here?

We can add professional terms to the question, only then the output will be the same as the input. So the answer will of course be more professional. However, it can still be given simply or at least in a structured way.

So the next principle is structure. We should structure the questions, ask one thing at a time or avoid putting very complicated and long sentences in the questions.

One option is to ask a question and ask in more detail, make some extension, add information or we can divide the question into parts and use bullets/numbering. So there will be no chaos and the answer will be structured.

Another tool is to tell the chatbot who it is. Give it a specific role. We can tell it that it is a university professor, or a personal trainer, or that it is a recognized chef. And it is with the help of these roles that we can get an answer in a given area.

If we ask the same thing and give it different roles, we will get different answers. Let's take the example of a chef - if we tell it that it is a Michelin chef, it will use different tools, it will communicate with us on a different, more sophisticated level. It will describe the procedures as an expert. If we tell him that he is an amateur chef, he will communicate with us on a more friendly level, on an amateur level. An amateur chef will give us a simpler recipe, a simpler preparation procedure, a Michelin-starred chef, on the contrary, a more complex one, etc.

Chatbots also make mistakes. Is it necessary to verify information every time?

It is ideal to verify everything and not blindly trust everything that the chatbot answers. It is also appropriate to correct the chatbot if it gives an incorrect answer.

Sometimes we see immediately that the answer is wrong, we can ask again or tell him that I imagine the answer differently or we imagine the output in a different format or inform him that this information is false and give him the source of the true information, etc.

Are paid versions of chatbots better? Do I get better results from them than with the unpaid version?

Probably yes. From personal experience, I can say that yes, because those paid services offer larger models.

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