Stop Saying 'Make It Better': Few-Shot Prompting Works Best With Good and Bad Examples
bigaiguy · x · 2026-10-08
A practical take on few-shot prompting: vague instructions like "make it better" or "sound more human" underperform a few well-chosen examples, which communicate style and format more efficiently than long instructions.
The advanced trick is pairing examples with counter-examples: show a good output, a bad output, ask the model to explain the differences, then generate a response following the good one and avoiding the bad one.
Caveat: examples guide the model but don't guarantee perfection.
Related event: bigaiguy's Few-Shot Prompting Thread: Examples Beat Long Descriptions(9 posts)→
More from Apps
- Apple Watch Readiness Score Got It Wrong, So This Engineer Built His Own App — TejasKumar_ · 2026-10-09
- Grok Bot ships proactive bot, keyless X search monitoring and in-chat slide decks — elonmusk · 2026-10-08
- AI coding is amazing, yet everyday apps barely visibly improve — why? — PAstynome · 2026-10-08
- DataBuddy Joins YC F26, Wins Users Over From Microsoft Clarity With Visualizations — cneuralnetwork · 2026-10-08
- Meta repeats its best GTM play: Instagram profile icon to drive millions of users — alliekmiller · 2026-10-08
- Moving Your Chat History Between ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini: Every Export Option Compared — Whole_Succotash_2391 · 2026-10-08