Selecting the Right Persona: The Key to Successful AI Writing Projects

Be careful: AI writing tools like ChatGPT, Rytr, and AI Writer can create miracles but they can also lead you astray.

AI has Infinite Personas

It all depends on the “persona” you are selecting for your AI tool.

Remember: an AI platform has INFINITE personas, personality profiles, or IDs.

Two AI Persona Types

We can place them into two broad categories:

• SPEAKER’S persona — who is doing the talking (AI)?
• LISTENER’s persona — who is doing the asking (You)?

It cannot by its own decide which persona it should use when answering your commands.

If you don’t specify a specific persona, it’ll use its “default persona.” You can easily be lulled into the assumption that that’s the only answer it’s going to give you.

But I guarantee you, the next time you ask your question, you’ll get different answers when you ask the AI tool to assume different personal identities. You’ll get a different kind of result depending on whose identity you ask the AI tool to adopt.

That is the SPEAKER’S persona.

Not only that but the “receiver’s persona” matters too. 

Who is LISTENING? 

A 10 year old child or a math professor? 

That’s also equally important since you’ll get different answers depending on the (a) person you pretend to be and (b) you ask the AI engine to be.

Example 1

COMMAND: You are a 10 year old child. Explain Quantum Physics to another 10 year old child.

As you can see here both the SPEAKER and LISTENER personas are the same: a 10 tr old child.

Here is the answer:

Quantum physics is a type of science that studies how tiny particles like electrons and protons behave. It looks at how these particles are so small that they can be in different places at the same time, and how they can move through solid objects. It also looks at how these particles interact with each other in different ways and how they can act like waves. It’s like a puzzle that scientists are trying to solve.

Example 2

COMMAND: You are a physics professor. Explain Quantum Physics to another 10 year old child.

Here is the answer:

Quantum physics is a branch of science that studies how things work at a very small scale. It helps us understand the behavior of matter and energy at the smallest level, which is smaller than the size of an atom. Quantum physics tells us that matter and energy are made up of tiny particles called quanta, which can act like both particles and waves. This means that things can be in more than one place at the same time and can move from one place to another without actually traveling through the space in between. This is why quantum physics is so strange and interesting!

(Since the speaker is a more knowledgeable person, now it talks about “Quanta” without getting too deep into the subject.)

Example 3

COMMAND: You are a physics professor. Explain Quantum Physics to another physics professor.

Here is the answer:

Quantum physics is a branch of physics that studies the behavior and properties of matter and energy on a subatomic level. It is the most fundamental description of nature at small scales and is the basis of all modern physics. It deals with phenomena such as wave-particle duality, uncertainty, and entanglement. Quantum physics describes the behavior of matter and energy at the level of individual particles and can be applied to the behavior of atoms, electrons, photons and other subatomic particles. It is used to explain the behavior of matter and energy on a very small scale and has implications for a wide range of technologies, from computers to lasers to quantum computing. It also provides a framework for understanding the origin and evolution of the universe.

(Since both the speaker and the listener are physics professors, now we hear about “wave-particle duality, uncertainty, and entanglement.”)

Takeaway

The answers you’ll get from an AI engine will all depend on the speaker and listener persona you specify. 

That’s why you should not take any answer for granted when you are probing ChatGPT.

Audience matters in all writing. By defining the identity (persona) of the speaker as well as the audience you’ll get more specific and more meaningful results. 

(Photo credit: Photo by Kindel Media: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-toy-bot-8566472/