I’m assuming, in today’s post, that you have some knowledge of both economics and of economists, and that you are a student from India.
Feel free to copy these prompts word for word, but the major reason for doing this is to give you ideas about how you might go about constructing prompts yourself. Try modifying these prompts by choosing a different economist, specifying different time periods, or tweaking it however you like. Feel free to go meta too, as one of the prompts below does. But the idea behind this post, which itself is a continuation of yesterday’s post, is to help you learn how to use ChatGPT as your own personal tutor.
What if Paul Krugman could be asked to give you ten introductory lectures in economics?
See what kind of answer you get, and feel free to ask follow-up questions before asking ChatGPT (in this case, aka Paul Krugman) to move on to the next lecture. Note that the “Yes, I do.” in the prompt below is in response to ChatGPT asking me if I had any questions. Also note that these aren’t necessarily the questions I would ask of ChatGPT myself – I’m trying to think of myself as a first year undergraduate student, and am framing my questions accordingly. If you would like to ask slightly more advanced questions, please do so, by all means. And of course, that cuts both ways – feel free to ask simpler questions!
I followed up with another question:
And then on to the second lecture:
Again, if you like, begin with these exact prompts and see where they take you. But I would encourage you to make changes to these prompts to suit your own learning style better (“recommend only podcasts or YouTube videos”, for example).
If only I could have used this next prompt about twenty years ago. Pah.
And if all else fails, go meta:
I know that you’ll be able to come up with better prompts, more suited to your learning style. The idea behind this post is just to get you started. The more you converse with AI, the better your prompts will get, and the better a conversation you will end up having.
The ability to have a personal tutor who can customize learning pathways suited to your interests is what makes this such an exciting time to be a student. For example:
What a great time to be a student!