Prompt!! Just like an AI

For years, I have struggled to explain the 3-sentence platforms exercise to my students, and they, in return, struggle to understand me.

I don’t think it’s an easy exercise. It is quite challenging to train yourself to endow who we are, where we are, and what we are doing in only 3 sentences of dialogue.

You have to use specific titles, place names, object names, etc.

You need to refrain from using words like: Here, this/it, he/she

And rather commit and name those things: Where is here? What is this? Who is she?

I don’t think at all that every improv scene has to start with those 3 sentences which endow everything to the bone, oh no.

But in some cases, you will have to use this skill, and I think that if you are not skilled at doing it easily in 3 sentences, you will also struggle to do it with 10.

But what has that got to do with AI, you ask?

Well, lately I have found myself saying to my students, “Prompt us!” Just as if the audience and your partner were an AI.

As improvisers, we are in the business of creating imaginary worlds with words, and today, millions of people around the world are doing the same—they use words so that AI can generate the right image they are aiming for.

When you sit in front of your computer, trying to get AI to generate exactly the image you are thinking of, you will ask yourself, “What are the few words that have to appear in my description? Otherwise, AI will generate something completely weird and awkward.”

So, if you are trying, for example, to generate an oil painting of 2 Chihuahua dogs on a waterslide having fun, if you do not use the words: 2 Chihuahuas, waterslide, having fun, oil painting, there is no way you will get anything close to what you were imagining.

And of course, after the first draft, you can make tweaks to make it clearer and richer.

Same thing in an improv scene: if you do not use specific words, there is no way that your partner or audience will understand which reality you are trying to create on stage, and I would dare to say, sometimes even you will not be super sure.

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For example

A: Wow! This is the best waterslide in this park!!

B: I am so glad that Chihuahua dogs like us are allowed to slide on it!!

A: OMG, I am having so much fun!!

Where:

Waterslide

Who:

Chihuahuas

What:

Having fun!!!!

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It is really as simple as that.

If you would like to practice using this tool, you are more than welcome to write to me, and I will send you an online class with an explanation and an exercise you can enjoy.

You can also find below the definitions of: Endowment and Prompting. And of course: My incredible AI-generated oil painting of 2 Chihuahuas on a waterslide.

Enjoy!!

In improv, an endowment is a type of offer where you label your scene partner(s) with characteristics, attitudes, or behaviours, which they then adopt in your scene.

Endowment shows good cooperation, giving your improv scene partner specific attributes to “yes and” as you build a scene together.

A teleprompter	Also known as an autocue, is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script. Using a teleprompter is similar to using cue cards.
Prompter (theatre)	The prompter (sometimes prompt) in a theatre is a person who prompts or cues actors when they forget their lines or neglect to move on the stage to where they ...
Prompting	The act of trying to make someone say something.