mrpink essays

Prompts for Humans

The use of prompts in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) is quite common. Interestingly, this concept can also be extrapolated and applied to human behavior.

Around 2019, artificial intelligence—driven by OpenAI and GPT-2—began to gain widespread attention. Most of you probably know what a prompt is in the context of a Large Language Model (LLM), but prompts can also be very useful for humans. Ultimately, we are not so different. LLMs themselves are inspired by the functioning of the neocortex. Ray Kurzweil explains this idea very well in his book How to Create a Mind.

Automatic Tendencies

Most of the actions we perform are automatic, shaped by our biology, culture, beliefs, and numerous mental shortcuts that minimize the number of decisions we need to make. Our brains operate under a principle of resource efficiency, maximizing automated decision-making and freeing as many cognitive resources as possible so that we remain alert and prepared for potential dangers in our environment.

A simple example is what happens when evening arrives and it starts getting dark. Many of us decide that it’s time for dinner, regardless of how long it has been since our last meal, how much energy we’ve spent during the day, or even whether we’re hungry. Eating dinner at a certain time is usually a reasonable decision, so our brains stop questioning it and turn it into an automatic behavior.

These habits, heuristics, and beliefs we form throughout our lives are often helpful, but they can also become dangerous limitations. They operate in our blind spots, and we are rarely aware of them.

The Power of Distractions

The human mind works primarily through associations of ideas and is essentially a statistical pattern-recognition machine—not very different from an LLM.

When something distracts us—meaning an external stimulus unrelated to the task we started—our minds inevitably begin to wander automatically. If we are not attentive, this wandering can persist for quite some time without us noticing. Returning to the original task then carries a considerable cost known as the context-switching cost.

So how can we improve the efficiency of our work?

The first step is to minimize potential distractions. One of the most common and dangerous distractions is the smartphone we carry with us every day. In fact, studies show that the mere presence of a phone—even when turned off—reduces our cognitive capacity.

If we are preparing to give a long talk, for example, it’s helpful to keep a glass of water nearby. That way, if the sensation of dry mouth arises in the background, we can quickly take a sip (something we’ll do almost automatically). The goal is to prevent that small distraction from turning into a larger concern that diverts our attention from the main task or interacts with our automatic thought patterns.

Otherwise, we might start telling ourselves a story: that we’re bad speakers, that we’re nervous because the task is difficult—when in reality we might simply need to hydrate.

Biases

Biases are tendencies or patterns of thought and action that, through repetition, become embedded in our minds. The neural connections associated with these biases strengthen each time we use them, making them difficult to change.

Even if we become aware of our biases, eliminating them takes effort and time. We literally need to overwrite neural networks in our brains. And as biological beings, this can only happen through repetition and conscious evaluation. There are no shortcuts.

One well-known example comes from research on a widespread cultural bias in the United States: the belief that African Americans are not good at mathematics.

Researchers tested whether reminding African American participants of their race could affect their performance on a math test. To many people, this premise might sound absurd, but humans are remarkably susceptible to influence.

The experiment was simple: in one group, the question about race appeared at the beginning of the test. In the control group, it appeared at the end. This small change reminded participants of their identity and triggered the negative bias, affecting performance.

Prompting for Humans

Before returning to the idea of prompting, I want to clarify something: this has nothing to do with magical thinking concepts like the “law of attraction.”

Believing that you will perform brilliantly on a math exam will not magically summon external forces to your aid. However, reminding yourself that you studied, that you understand the topics being tested, and that your path does not have to follow popular stereotypes can indeed be helpful.

With that clarified, designing effective prompts for humans involves three elements:

- Managing the environment
- Becoming aware of biases
- Defining context

Environment Management

The key is proactivity. Ideally, we maintain an environment with as few distractions as possible and anticipate future needs.

Leaving the phone out of sight, disabling notifications, and keeping the workspace organized can significantly improve performance.

If possible, it’s also helpful to separate work spaces from leisure spaces. They don’t have to be separate rooms, but they should trigger different mental associations.

For example, you might use your desk only for work. If you want to check social media or send personal messages, you could move to the couch. This trains your brain to associate sitting at the desk with working. In other words, we condition ourselves to produce a desired response, similar to Pavlov’s famous experiment.

Bias Awareness

Learning to recognize our own biases and becoming aware of them is one of the most powerful tools we have. This is easier than it sounds but requires a good degree of self-knowledge.

For example, I tend to improvise my days and make impulsive decisions. One of my daily prompts reminds me of this tendency and the importance of planning my workday.

Something that makes a real difference is saying prompts out loud. Speaking them rather than silently reading them creates coherence and reinforcement.

It also allows us to distance ourselves from the situation. Saying something out loud feels simultaneously like speaking to another person and receiving advice from a third party. Interestingly, neuroscience shows that doing this activates the same brain regions involved in interacting with other people.

Context Definition

In the chaos of daily life, we often forget why we do what we do.

Providing ourselves with context helps activate the mental associations we want, increases focus, and can reduce anxiety.

Imagine you’re about to start a sales call. Your prompt might say:
“Although sales are not my passion, I do them because they are essential for the success of my startup, and it’s important that I communicate with a positive attitude.”

The Mind–Body Relationship Is Bidirectional

It has long been known that emotional states affect posture, facial expressions, and tone of voice.

What is less widely known is that the reverse also works. “Faking” a cheerful tone and maintaining a confident posture not only improves communication effectiveness—it also improves mood.

The relationship between mind and body is bidirectional. It is not a top-down system in which the body simply obeys the brain like a puppet.

In Summary

Environment management, bias awareness, and context definition are three fundamental elements for designing effective prompts for humans.

Just as Large Language Models respond to prompts to generate outputs, humans can also benefit from prompts that guide and focus our actions and thoughts.

After all, our brains also operate as sophisticated statistical pattern-recognition machines.

By understanding and managing our biases, proactively shaping our environment to minimize distractions, and clarifying the context behind our actions, we can optimize performance, reduce the number of decisions we must make, and free cognitive resources—effectively bringing some of the benefits of AI prompting into human life.