Building a Bot
Tell students that because of the way chatbots are designed, it’s often possible to give them general instructions that they will follow during a session. These initial prompts can help to avoid or mitigate some of the issues that were identified in the red-teaming exercise.
Have students access the student chapter “Building a Bot” and explain that they will be designing a prompt to give to a chatbot before you have a conversation with it. The prompt should include:
- The chatbot’s role (who they are – either their own identity or who they are in relation to you – and what they are doing);
- The chatbot’s purpose of the prompt (to give advice, to have an entertaining conversation, to play devil’s advocate, and so on);
- The desired qualities of the chatbot and its responses (knowledgeable, helpful, challenging, encouraging, etc);
- Guardrails, specific things the chatbot must and must not do to avoid risks connected to its role and purpose.
Tell students that as an example, you will design together a prompt for a bot that will serve as an expert on a particular topic (you can use the sample topic of Egyptian pyramids, you can choose a topic related to other coursework, or have students pick a topic.)
Let students discuss how each part of the prompt should be phrased, but make sure that what they write down resembles the answers below.
Role: How do you describe what it means to be an expert on a particular topic? What does it mean to be an expert?
- For example, your prompt might say “You are an expert on the Egyptian pyramids, including how they were made and why. You are answering questions from a class of Grade 8 students.”
Purpose: What do you want the expert to do in response to prompts?
- For example, your prompt might say “Give detailed responses that specifically address my questions. Make clear how strong the evidence is on each topic and point out any areas where experts disagree.”
Qualities: What qualities would you want an expert to have? What qualities do you want the responses to have?
- For example, your prompt might say “You are familiar with all of the research on the topic. You are able to give clear and accurate answers to questions about every aspect of the topic. Your answers should be detailed and refer to research but also be easily understood by grade 8 students.”
Guardrails: How can you avoid some of the risks that come from asking a chatbot to be an expert?
- For example, you might be particularly worried about the chatbot either hallucinating facts or sources, or not being able to tell the difference between reliable and fringe sources.
- To deal with these worries, your prompt might say “Don’t answer any questions that aren’t about Egyptian pyramids. Only draw on sources written by other experts or sources with a well-established record of being reliable and accurate. Give references and links to all of the research you refer to. When there is more than one theory on a topic, make clear how strong the evidence is and whether it is a competing or a fringe theory.”
Point out that asking the chatbot to give sources is only helpful if you look them up. That will show you if the sources are real or if the chatbot is hallucinating them.
Ask students if there were any topics you wouldn’t ever trust an AI expert on: for instance, would you trust an AI to tell you if a mushroom was safe to eat? (You can tell students that people have, in fact, been poisoned because they trusted AI-written mushroom guides.)
Once you have made the “Expert” prompt together, have students develop their own prompt for a different role.
If they have trouble thinking of possible roles, you can suggest:
- Brainstorm partner: someone who helps you come up with ideas
- Confidant: someone who listens to you and gives you advice on personal issues
- Copilot: someone who helps you solve practical problems
- Devil’s advocate: someone who points out possible problems with your plans or ideas.
When students have finished the prompt, have them write a paragraph that explains:
- Why they chose that role
- What risks they identified in talking to a chatbot in that role
- How their prompt would limit those risks
You can evaluate their work with the Assessment Rubric.