Part 2/9:
One key point Shapiro emphasizes is the influence of cultural communication styles on prompt formulation. For example, in cultures like India and Japan, indirectness and politeness often result in the frequent use of passive voice and insinuation, rather than direct commands. This can pose a problem when interacting with AI models like GPT-3 or ChatGPT, which are trained predominantly on Western datasets and respond best to explicit, direct instructions.
He advises non-native English speakers to leverage ChatGPT itself as a collaborative tool: ask it to help translate your intentions into clear and correct English. This includes framing requests with imperative sentences—clear commands that state exactly what you want, such as “Write a product review” rather than “I want a product review.”