Why users must be allowed to write their own system prompts
Ever had to write a prompt that ended up being longer than the output you needed? I have, and this time-suck has been nagging away at me for months.
With LLMs the separation between system prompts (written by very talented developers) and user prompts (written by users like you and me who know what we need) is born out of traditional software development. But we're not building traditional software anymore are we? Nope. Why not rethink this division of labour?
Those who design system prompts (developers) have assumed that everyone wants the system to behave in the same way. And before mainstream AI happened, this was more or less acceptable.
Now we want it to do things differently. Because AI.
Take article, post, email or presentation writing (things I do everyday). If my AI tool of choice is supposed to write those in my voice, in the way I write (length, tonality, brevity, dare I even say level of wit…) the system prompt also has to understand me.
The solution is simple. Simple-ish. Let's settle on possible...: Allow the user to tweak the default prompts, or write their own.
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Win 1: The user will be liberated from having to repeat a long winded prompt every time it uses the tool for a specific purpose.
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Win 2: The system will learn more, and quicker, about what the user wants and how they want it done.
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Win 3: The developer will have created a tool that strengthens value and loyalty, with every character tapped in to it.
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Win 4: True, repeatable personalisation becomes just that little bit more likely.
Who'll be the first to make user-authored system prompts a USP of their product, and an intuitive, well-designed experience at that?
