The Prompt Writer
While the carriage driver or horseshoe maker might have seen their numbers dwindle after the car came about, creative writers and visual designers might have a bit more longevity to their careers if they’re willing to take on a new role: prompt writer.
Having played with DALL-E Mini for several weeks and relying on it to generate the images for my posts, I’ve found that writing a proper prompt to kickoff the generation tool is an art in itself. It might take a few attempts to have the image generated the way it seems in your head or to be delighted by what’s produced.
This might be an irreplaceable part of the dance between humans and machines. We know what we want. We know what we like. Only we can be the judge of whether we like what’s being produced from a prompt we provide the machine.
The prompt writer of the future will need to create their own internal model of how they expect a generative tool to respond. It will be like a trainer working with an animal. Our predictive tool is a meat-based computer in our skulls. A skilled or talented prompt writer will be able to squeeze gold from these tools.
This is why there’ll still be jobs for people even after the machines take over. Only we know what we want.
