5 ms·

"Prompt engineering" isn't real. What are you engineering? You're throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. Software Engineering is kinda fake, especiall

"Prompt engineering" isn't real. What are you engineering? You're throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. Software Engineering is kinda fake, especially in industry, but at least that's an actual discipline. "AI monkey" is a better description

williadc 4y ago
> You're throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. A more charitable description might be "You're employing the scientific method to extract value from GPT-like systems." Just like in science, with time you're developing intuition for how the underlying system works, but you still have to run the experiments.
- amrocha 4y ago
  Ok, then it's not "prompt engineer", it's "researcher" or "analyst".
haxton 4y ago
Would you prefer "LLM Reverse Engineer" then?
- amrocha 4y ago
  That's an insult to both engineers, and reverse engineering. "AI Monkey" is pretty good imo if all you're doing is copy pasting responses from an LLM
  - iguana 4y ago
    What makes you think copy and pasting responses from an LLM is the actual job being posted?
iguana 4y ago
This is an unhelpfully cynical take. The job title has "engineer" in it, so a more charitable interpretation is more serious than "AI monkey". Using LLMs to solve real problems is not easy. Making sure that you don't introduce regressions while making improvements is difficult, and requires building and evaluating a dataset, and the necessary pipelines. It may also include diversification of LLM providers, and creating the necessary abstractions. A fundamental understanding of how LLMs work, ability to compare different architectural approaches, along with typical data engineering and software development skills would be required. What if you want to use the LLM for Question/Answer systems that requires working with embeddings? What if you want to find a way to process data locally without sending sensitive data to the LLM provider? This requires real engineering skills.
- threeseed 4y ago
  > Using LLMs to solve real problems is not easy. Yes it is. That is exactly why products like ChatGPT have been taking off as quick as they have. What you're talking about is not using LLMs as a product but using them as a component within a broader system. And so of course that requires engineering skills.
  - iguana 4y ago
    That's why the word "engineer" is in the title and it isn't "prompt writer" or "ChatGPT user". It's highly unlikely that anyone taking this effort seriously is copying and pasting from ChatGPT, rather than using the API and building pipelines as part of a broader system. Instruction-fine-tuned LLMs like ChatGPT require creating, validating, and maintaining prompts. Finding ways to use them safely is also not easy - prompt injection and hallucination are just 2 potential pitfalls - there are many more. Denigrating this effort as "AI monkey" is myopic at best, but really just comes across as a signal that someone is terrified of being replaced by this new tech. With that attitude, they will be.
- amrocha 4y ago
  Your objection boils down to >What if you want to [do software engineering]? Then you're a software engineer. Writing prompts isn't engineering. Building systems is engineering. Just because I use keyboards to program doesn't mean I'm a keyboard engineer, does it?
  - iguana 4y ago
    Writing prompts and engineering together = prompt engineer. The engineering depends on the prompt and the prompt depends on the engineering. Just like an ML engineer, or a QA engineer, or [anything] engineer. How specific the job title gets really depends on hiring criteria and daily job function. Otherwise, the job title would be "prompt writer". Your point is what, that existing engineering titles cover this effort? Sure, you can just call all of it software engineering, but sometimes it's useful to be more specific. The LLMs are so powerful now that this new, more specific title makes sense to me, and clearly those using this new title. We'll see how it pans out over the next few years.
blibble 4y ago
it's like those books from the late 90s "Google for Dummies"

williadc 4y ago

> You're throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. A more charitable description might be "You're employing the scientific method to extract value from GPT-like systems." Just like in science, with time you're developing intuition for how the underlying system works, but you still have to run the experiments.

amrocha 4y ago
Ok, then it's not "prompt engineer", it's "researcher" or "analyst".

haxton 4y ago

Would you prefer "LLM Reverse Engineer" then?

amrocha 4y ago
That's an insult to both engineers, and reverse engineering. "AI Monkey" is pretty good imo if all you're doing is copy pasting responses from an LLM
- iguana 4y ago
  What makes you think copy and pasting responses from an LLM is the actual job being posted?

iguana 4y ago

This is an unhelpfully cynical take. The job title has "engineer" in it, so a more charitable interpretation is more serious than "AI monkey". Using LLMs to solve real problems is not easy. Making sure that you don't introduce regressions while making improvements is difficult, and requires building and evaluating a dataset, and the necessary pipelines. It may also include diversification of LLM providers, and creating the necessary abstractions. A fundamental understanding of how LLMs work, ability to compare different architectural approaches, along with typical data engineering and software development skills would be required. What if you want to use the LLM for Question/Answer systems that requires working with embeddings? What if you want to find a way to process data locally without sending sensitive data to the LLM provider? This requires real engineering skills.

threeseed 4y ago
> Using LLMs to solve real problems is not easy. Yes it is. That is exactly why products like ChatGPT have been taking off as quick as they have. What you're talking about is not using LLMs as a product but using them as a component within a broader system. And so of course that requires engineering skills.
- iguana 4y ago
  That's why the word "engineer" is in the title and it isn't "prompt writer" or "ChatGPT user". It's highly unlikely that anyone taking this effort seriously is copying and pasting from ChatGPT, rather than using the API and building pipelines as part of a broader system. Instruction-fine-tuned LLMs like ChatGPT require creating, validating, and maintaining prompts. Finding ways to use them safely is also not easy - prompt injection and hallucination are just 2 potential pitfalls - there are many more. Denigrating this effort as "AI monkey" is myopic at best, but really just comes across as a signal that someone is terrified of being replaced by this new tech. With that attitude, they will be.
amrocha 4y ago
Your objection boils down to >What if you want to [do software engineering]? Then you're a software engineer. Writing prompts isn't engineering. Building systems is engineering. Just because I use keyboards to program doesn't mean I'm a keyboard engineer, does it?
- iguana 4y ago
  Writing prompts and engineering together = prompt engineer. The engineering depends on the prompt and the prompt depends on the engineering. Just like an ML engineer, or a QA engineer, or [anything] engineer. How specific the job title gets really depends on hiring criteria and daily job function. Otherwise, the job title would be "prompt writer". Your point is what, that existing engineering titles cover this effort? Sure, you can just call all of it software engineering, but sometimes it's useful to be more specific. The LLMs are so powerful now that this new, more specific title makes sense to me, and clearly those using this new title. We'll see how it pans out over the next few years.

blibble 4y ago

it's like those books from the late 90s "Google for Dummies"