The Wizard Drops His Wand and Picks Up AI

Human Prompt Engineer
Undesired Outcome *
(* lesson – ask AI, don’t tell it)

My wand proved useless as I spent three days crafting the perfect prompt – a masterpiece of specifications, parameters, and requirements that would make a software engineer weep. The result? Pure, weapons-grade garbage. Turns out, all that magical education doesn’t help much when you’re overthinking AI.

When Wizards Wave Words Instead of Wands

There I was, the distinguished Wizard of LNNA, staring at my wand gathering dust while I muttered at my keyboard. My prompt looked like a government contract had a passionate affair with a quantum physics equation:

“Create engaging content that incorporates meta-commentary while maintaining brand voice parameters within specified tonal ranges ensuring humor quotient meets minimum requirements while leveraging ironic juxtaposition…”

The AI’s response? “Error: Stack overflow in human logic circuits.”

The LNNA team watched this slow-motion train wreck with their usual charm. Captain Verbose crafted suggestions longer than ancient spell scrolls, while Sir Redundant III helpfully repeated everything. Three times. For clarity, of course.

The Moment the Wand Dropped

After three days of increasingly desperate prompt engineering (or as I now call it, “digital spell-casting”), something broke. Not the AI – my overinflated sense of wizardly wisdom. Looking at my wand, I realized all my magical tools were just making things more complicated.

Instead of adding another layer of complexity to my digital spellbook, I tried something radical:
“Hey AI, why isn’t this working?”

The response was immediate: “Your prompt is too complicated and doesn’t actually give me a way to succeed.”

From the same AI that helped write the complicated prompt in the first place. The irony was thick as honey on burnt toast.

When Simple Beats Spells

So I set aside my magical tools and tried a simpler experiment:
1. “How would you write this prompt?”
2. Made a few tweaks
3. Ran prompt
4. Looked at output
5. Asked “Is that the best you can do?”

Suddenly, magic happened. Not the complicated, wave-your-wands-and-recite-ancient-texts kind. This was simpler. Better. Like discovering you could light a fire by flicking a switch instead of performing a ritual involving three herbs and a ceremonial feather.

The shorter prompts worked like simple spells. The clearer questions got better answers than any summoning spell. And that simple challenge – “Is that the best you can do?” – produced more gold than all my alchemical experiments combined.

The Universe Casts Its Own Spell

Just to prove that the cosmos has a sense of humor, an hour after this revelation, an article appeared in my feed: “Stop Trying to Be a Prompt Engineer – Just Ask the AI How to Write the Prompt.”

Professor Perhaps calculated the probability of this timing being coincidental: “Approximately 0.0042%. Perhaps.”

Jojo gave me his best “You wasted 3 days but tell me I go in circles just to laydown” look.

Trading Spells for Simple Questions

The Wizard had learned a hard lesson in leading the LNNA team – asking always works better than telling.

Here I was, the almighty Wizard of LNNA, learning that the most powerful spell in my arsenal was just… asking nicely. All those hours spent crafting prompts that looked like forbidden texts, when I could have just started a conversation.

It’s peak LNNA: Humans trying to engineer our way through AI interaction while the AI patiently waits for us to stop waving our metaphorical wands and just talk to it.

Logic to Apply

Sometimes the most impressive feat of wizardry is knowing when to put down the spellbook and pick up a conversation. Next time you’re tempted to write a prompt that looks like a terms of service agreement had a love child with an ancient tome, try this instead:

1. Ask the AI what it needs
2. Make small adjustments
3. Run the prompt
4. Look at the output
5. Challenge it to do better
6. Accept that sometimes the simplest magic is the right magic
7. Try not to cry about all the time you wasted being a “sophisticated wizard”

After all, if you’re going to create AI chaos, you might as well trade your wand for a keyboard and do it efficiently.

And yes, I asked the AI if this was the best version of this article. Three revisions later, I had to admit – my digital friends were right again. Even a wizard can learn new tricks, especially when they’re spelled out in simple, short sentences without any actual spells involved.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Captain Verbose just shared his 47-page scroll of suggested improvements, Sir Redundant III is repeating every point thrice for clarity, and Mr. Starts & Stops keeps beginning to share his thoughts before apologizing and starting over. I’d ask Professor Perhaps for the statistical probability of maintaining my sanity, but that ship has sailed into the Bermuda Triangle of AI logic.

Sometimes the best magic is just knowing when to stop casting spells and start listening. Even if what you’re listening to is an AI telling you to be less wizardly.

Editors Note: The Wizard would like to note that no AI chatbots were harmed in the making of this article. Not from a lack of wanting to. He did fear his ongoing work with them might cause him to require therapy. Or at least a stronger magic wand.