By Larry Urish, contributing writer
Since the dawn of the Industrial Age, technical improvements have been enabled through the work of experts in their respective fields. Automotive technology, for example, advanced thanks to the efforts of engineers and mechanics well-versed in their specialty. So one would expect the growth of artificial intelligence to be spearheaded by top data scientists and software engineers, people with years of experience at the cutting edge of digital technology.
However, this is not the case, said Roger Lloyd, director of the Orange County / Inland Empire Small Business Development Center’s Marketing Center. “People think AI equals IT, but that’s not really true,” he said. “While the technical aspect does involve data scientists building language models, for the general use of AI for human productivity and improvement, anyone — regardless of age, background or education level — can use it.”
Sharing the widespread accessibility and benefit of artificial intelligence was one key element behind the inaugural Orange County Artificial Intelligence Prompt-a-Thon, an AI-prompt-writing competition hosted by Santiago Canyon College on Tuesday. Organized by the local SBDC, the Orange County Regional Consortium, the Anaheim Unified School District and United Way of Orange County, the event featured teams competing to write the most effective AI prompts tackling a variety of topics.
Show Caption
1 of 4
Expand
What exactly is an AI prompt? “It’s a guided, well-directed sequence of words that educates AI and leads to tailored responses, solutions or answers,” said Michael Sacoto, interim executive director of the Orange County Regional Consortium. Prompt writers, he said, engage with AI in what are essentially text-based conversations to find solutions and strategies to all manner of challenges.
“An effective prompt takes into consideration not just the final outcome,” said Lloyd, who ran an AI consulting firm from 2015 to 2019. “It involves a prompt’s emotional tone and includes many details about the intended recipients — their educational level, for example — to deliver the outcome they want. When done effectively, a prompt can take up to 15 minutes to write.
“Michael and I asked ourselves, ‘What if we were to have a competition in a fun environment that showcased prompting as creativity in action?’ ” Lloyd said. … Our goal was to use this Prompt-a-Thon as a platform to showcase how anyone can use AI at any age, any background or any level of education. It also shows the value of teamwork while furnishing examples of effective versus ineffective prompting, and it illustrates how creative thought is essential in leveraging the value of prompt engineering.”
Getting students to understand how to use prompts properly, whether in the classroom or in competitions such as this, helps them build the skills and understanding of this resource that the workforce is going to be asking for very soon,” Sacoto said.
The competing students came from the Anaheim Unified School District and Orange County United Way; both organizations recruited and prepped the students, Sacoto said. Pitting one group against another in a 16-team playoff format, each team was given an initial prompt question and had one minute to discuss it. “Then they had three minutes of back-and-forth prompt writing to get as close to a solution as they could,” Lloyd said. A panel of six judged their work based on the number of prompts written to solve the problem, the creativity involved and the final outcome. “Seeing the speed of creative thought in action was extremely valuable in a fun learning environment like this.”
Members of the winning team, from Kennedy High School and the Kennedy Institute of Technology & Engineering, were Michael Clavio and Jaden Baena.
An example of an initial prompt question is as follows: You’re tasked with organizing a school spirit event in Orange, CA, where the high school graduation rate is 88% and school pride runs high. Describe what the event would include and how you’d make it inclusive and engaging for students from all grades. A few hints to guide the competitors, Lloyd said, would include the school’s graduation rate and level of school spirit. “We wanted them to leverage these in the prompt-writing process.”
Both teams going head-to-head in a given round were separated so they couldn’t see each other’s prompts, while the audience viewed large screens as they watched the fast-paced competition unfold.
While noting the input from the SBDC, Lloyd praised the OC Regional Consortium, Anaheim Unified School District and OC United Way for their critical efforts in organizing the competition, and he applauded Santiago Canyon College for hosting the event.
The next Prompt-a-Thon will take place on Dec. 12 at Santa Ana College. As for future competitions, “Roger and I would like to expand it to nonstudents,” Sacoto said. “For example, we have an idea to open up a Prompt-a-Thon to older adults. … And we’d like to thank our leadership for giving us the blessings to organize something like this.”
