How ChatGPT and other AI chatbots answer your question
System prompt: the hidden text an AI chatbot adds to your question
Before an AI chatbot reads your question, it gets a long text. You never typed this text, and you never see it. Someone wrote it before you pressed Send, and it affects every answer.
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1
Meet Rono. He works at the company behind the chatbot, and he wrote the text above your question before you ever asked about your plant.
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2
Your question leaves your phone alone. On the company's computers, Rono's text goes on top of it. This text is the system prompt, and it never shows in your chat.
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3
The model gets both as one text, and that whole text is the prompt. The part you typed is only its end.
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4
Rono wrote nothing about plants, yet his text shapes the answer: it comes out warm and plain.
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5
One problem, though: the model cannot read a single letter of it.
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Quick check
Same model, two apps.
Show the answer
Its system prompt tells the model to stick to cooking. Same model, different text above your question.
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Go further
System prompts you can read, and the everyday meaning of "prompt".