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The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

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Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#171

Post by davidclark »

simonw wrote: post #29
davidclark wrote: post #24

Good example of why I have been totally ignoring people who beat the drum of needing to develop the skills of interacting with models. “Learn to prompt” is already dead? Of course, the true believers will just call this an evolution of prompting or some such goalpost moving. Personally, my goalpost still hasn’t moved: I’ll invest in using AI when we are past this grand debate about its usefulness. The utility of a ca…

We should be so far past the "grand debate about its usefulness" at this point. If you think that's still a debate, you might be listening to the small pool of very loud people who insist nothing has improved since the release of GPT-4.

Have you considered the opposite? Reflected on your own biases?

I’m listening to my own experience. Just today I gave it another fair shot. GitHub Copilot agent mode with GPT-4.1. Still unimpressed.

This is a really insightful look at why people perceive the usefulness of these models differently. It is fair to both sides without being dismissive as one side just not “getting it” or how we should be “so far” past debate:

https://ferd.ca/the-gap-through-which-we-praise-the-machine....

Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#173

Post by walterfreedom »

I am mostly focusing in this issue during the development of my agent engine (mostly for game npcs). Its really important to manage the context and not bloat the llm with irrelevant stuff for both quality and inference speed. I wrote about it here if anyone is interested: https://walterfreedom.com/post.html?id=ai-context-management

Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#174

Post by arkmm »

mountainriver wrote: post #162

You can give most of the modern LLMs pretty darn good context and they will still fail. Our company has been deep down this path for over 2 years. The context crowd seems oddly in denial about this

What are some examples where you've provided the LLM enough context that it ought to figure out the problem but it's still failing?

Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#176

Post by benreesman »

pyman wrote: post #167
benreesman wrote: post #154

The new skill is programming, same as the old skill. To the extent these things are comprehensible, you understand them by writing programs: programs that train them, programs that run inferenve, programs that analyze their behavior. You get the most out of LLMs by knowing how they work in detail. I had one view of what these things were and how they work, and a bunch of outcomes attached to that. And then I spent a…

Saying the best way to understand LLMs is by building one is like saying the best way to understand compilers is by writing one. Technically true, but most people aren't interested in going that deep.

I don't know, I've heard that meme too but it doesn't track with the number of cool compiler projects on GitHub or that frontpage HN, and while the LLM thing is a lot newer, you see a ton of useful/interesting stuff at the "an individual could do this on their weekends and it would mean they fundamentally know how all the pieces fit together" type stuff.

There will always be a crowd that wants the "master XYZ in 72 hours with this ONE NEAT TRICK" course, and there will always be a..., uh, group of people serving that market need.

But most people? Especially in a place like HN? I think most people know that getting buff involves going to the gym, especially in a place like this. I have a pretty high opinion of the typical person. We're all tempted by the "most people are stupid" meme, but that's because bad interactions are memorable, not because most people are stupid or lazy or whatever. Most people are very smart if they apply themselves, and most people will work very hard if the reward for doing so is reasonably clear.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IQmOGlbdn8g

Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#177

Post by FridgeSeal »

JohnMakin wrote: post #10

> Building powerful and reliable AI Agents is becoming less about finding a magic prompt or model updates. Ok, I can buy this > It is about the engineering of context and providing the right information and tools, in the right format, at the right time. when the "right" format and "right" time are essentially, and maybe even necessarily, undefined, then aren't you still reaching for a "magic" solution? If the definit…

It’s just AI people moving the goalposts now that everyone has realised that “prompt engineering” isn’t a special skill.

Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#178

Post by [deleted] »

walterfreedom wrote: post #173

I am mostly focusing in this issue during the development of my agent engine (mostly for game npcs). Its really important to manage the context and not bloat the llm with irrelevant stuff for both quality and inference speed. I wrote about it here if anyone is interested: https://walterfreedom.com/post.html?id=ai-context-management

[deleted]

Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#179

Post by joe5150 »

neilv wrote: post #131

> Then you can generate a response. > > Hey Jim! Tomorrow’s packed on my end, back-to-back all day. Thursday AM free if that works for you? Sent an invite, lmk if it works. Feel free to send generated AI responses like this if you are a sociopath.

Jim's agent replies, "Thursday AM touchbase sounds good, let's circle back after." Both agents meet for a blue sky strategy session while Jim's body floats serenely in a nutrient slurry.

Re: The new skill in AI is not prompting, it's context engineering

#180

Post by dbreunig »

refulgentis wrote: post #141
simonw wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the LLM prompting skills I figured out ~three years ago are still useful to me today. Even the ones that I've dropped are useful because I know that things that used to be helpful aren't helpful any more, which helps me build an intuition for how the models have improved over time.

I agree with you, but would echo OP's concern, in a way that makes me feel like a party pooper, but, is open about what I see us all expressing squeamish-ness about. It is somewhat bothersome to have another buzz phrase. I don't why we are doing this, other than there was a Xeet from the Shopify CEO, QT'd approvingly by Karpathy, then its written up at length, and tied to another set of blog posts. To wit, it went fr…

Sometimes buzzwords turn out to be mirages that disappear in a few weeks, but often they stick around.

I find they takeoff when someone crystallizes something many people are thinking about internally, and don’t realize everyone else is having similar thoughts. In this example, I think the way agent and app builders are wrestling with LLMs is fundamentally different than chatbots users (it’s closer to programming), and this phrase resonates with that crowd.

Here’s an earlier write up on buzzwords: https://www.dbreunig.com/2020/02/28/how-to-build-a-buzzword....

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