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Is prompt engineering the future? Or is the career path quickly becoming obsolete?
Prompt engineering, recently touted as the new hot job, is already changing. While some experts say that prompt engineering is still relevant, others argue that increasingly advanced and intuitive AI systems will soon make it obsolete.
We’ll take a look at the future of prompt engineering below.
The Rise & Fall of Prompt Engineering
In May, the World Economic Forum dubbed prompt engineering the number one emerging job for 2023. This left many wondering, “Is prompt engineering the future?” Today, however, some say prompt engineering’s moment in the sun has already waned.
What Is Prompt Engineering?
Prompt engineering entails crafting and refining written instructions to guide AI models to consistently generate the most desirable outputs for everything from emails and reports to code and digital art. Prompt engineers use text commands to communicate with AI, letting AI execute tasks.
With the right prompts, AI models can provide accurate information, generate creative content, and assist in solving a wide range of complex tasks. Crafting an effective query is considered both an art and science, requiring strong linguistic skills, a solid grasp of language intricacies, and a keen ability to apply these linguistic nuances judiciously in different contexts.
The Sudden Rise of Prompt Engineering
The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 heralded a revolutionary advancement in conversational AI technology, fundamentally altering the dynamics of human-AI interaction. At that time, many hailed prompt engineering as the new hot career and prompt engineers as “AI whisperers”—magicians capable of unlocking the systems’ greatest potential.
However, prompt engineering has largely failed to emerge as an independent career field. In the US, the role was mostly absorbed into existing jobs like machine learning engineering or AI specialist. Prompt engineering hadn’t become the sweeping, lucrative new profession some predicted.
View 1: Prompt Engineering Is Fading Away
Some AI experts and tech analysts now argue that as AI systems improve, prompt engineering will become redundant. They further assert that prompt engineering will die because:
- AI models’ capacity to understand natural language will improve.
- Prompts aren’t broadly transferable from one AI tool to another.
- Prompts become useless when AI models are updated.
- Prompting is becoming automated, so future AI models likely won’t require human prompts.
View 2: Prompt Engineering Is Evolving
Other AI leaders, researchers, and companies counter that it’s too early to dismiss prompt engineering as obsolete, arguing that:
- Prompt engineering jobs are on the rise in some countries.
- Prompt engineering skills will soon be a basic requirement for everyday tasks.
- Prompt engineering is transforming, not waning.
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