Intermediate · Generative AI

Custom Instructions

Visual diagram · (in preparation) · Math · (in preparation) · Worked example · 3 difficulty levels.

TL;DR. User-defined persistent directives given to an AI chatbot to influence its behavior, tone, response style, or default persona across conversations.

Technical Definition

User-defined persistent directives given to an AI chatbot to influence its behavior, tone, response style, or default persona across conversations.

How it works

Custom instructions allow users to provide context or preferences that the AI should always consider, regardless of the specific prompt. This helps to maintain consistency in responses, ensure specific constraints are met, or personalize the AI's interaction style. It enhances the AI's usability and adaptability.

Related Concepts

• Fine-Tuning — Adapting a pre-trained model to a specific task by continuing training on a smaller, task-specific dataset.
• Prompt Engineering — The art of crafting effective input instructions to guide LLM behavior without changing model weights.