Day 3 of Starting a GenAI Company in 30 Days - Prompt Entertainment!

Prompt Engineering, Marketplace, or Entertainment?

On Day 3 I created “Dune 2 Popcorn Bucket Fortune Teller” using Prompt Engineering

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, Prompt Engineering emerges as a crucial skill, thus I was looking to learn more about it but instead, I took a detour and fell into the rabbit hole of what I will coin as “Prompt Entertainment” aka FlowGPT.com. I got my first taste of it at Promptbase.com but when I found FlowGPT, it was a lot wilder and honestly a bit confusing at first but it was also intriguing… disconcerting… fascinating… disturbing… absorbing… I’m at a loss for words because I’m simultaneously amazed and bothered by what people will come up with.

Prompt Entertainment

FlowGPT is a perfect example of taking a new technology and mashing it with human ingenuity while also seeing our darker nature come out. It’s probably the truest representation of what we will do with GenAI.

I should have called this post “When a GenX’er encounters the GenZ world of GenAI."

Here is a screenshot of the latest FlowGPT homepage.

Once you get past all the generated manga characters, this site offers some unique insights into the world of AI and what the future may hold.

At the time I joined FlowGPT, they were having a “Bounty” or a competition for the most interesting character and the winner wins “Flux” (I’ll explain what Flux is in a bit.) Here is my creation for the bounty, “Dune 2 Popcorn Bucket Fortune Teller.” Let me know if it tells you anything interesting in the comment section.

?It was a ridiculously fun thing to build, and I probably spent way too much time doing this, but just as a FYI, Dune is my favorite all-time book.?

First, though, let me give you a quick tour of FlowGPT (and I’m not getting paid by them nor do they know that I am reviewing them in this post.) Here is the process of Prompt Engineering in FlowGPT:

On the left is the main menu, in the middle is where you fill out the name, description, and most importantly the Prompt; and on the far right is where you can preview the responses from the different AI models you pick. This was a valuable way for me to easily play with all the AI models and it only cost me some Flux. FlowGPT gives every new user some Flux tokens to begin with and you earn more Flux the more activities you do on the site.

The most important thing besides writing a great prompt for whatever you’re creating is picking the right model that will return the best results. The below screenshot shows the AI Models that FlowGPT uses, and when you hover over one, it shows you the cost of the model that people will have to pay to chat with it. The true cost of the model is hidden as “Flux” tokens, and probably marked up by FlowGPT.

You can see that GPT 4 will cost you 3 Flux per 1000 words while Dolphin, a smaller AI model will cost you no Flux at all. When you preview the various AI Models to test your Prompt (aka Flow on this site) it will cost you Flux and later if you use someone elses’ Flow it will cost you Flux as well. The screenshot below shows the cost of Flux.

You can also earn Flux by doing tasks on the website, like logging in every day, creating a Prompt, joining their Discord, etc.?

This site gave me a lot of ideas for delights.ai and how to use, leverage, and monetize all the various AI Models from OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, etc., by creating our own token and letting our users customize and pay for the results that they desired vs us preselecting an AI model.

FlowGPT also has “Features” in their main menu where you can turn on Image Generation or Voice Generation. While others like Youai and Promptbase let users add these features as a drag-and-drop interface, FlowGPT did this more like a typical UI with sliders to enable or disable it. This site is definitely for non-coders and in some ways easier than the typical No-Code UI.

If you want to test all the AI Models without having to go through the Prompt Engineering process, several bots on FlowGPT were advertising themselves as the free version of advanced AI Models such as ChatGPT 4 or Dall-E, which are typically only accessible through a monthly subscription.

?However, this is where the dark side of the internet comes in since there are many Flows claiming to be GPT 4 that you can try for free, costing no Flux, but it’s still just GPT 3.5. To test whether you’re using the claimed AI Model, ask about a major event after Jan 2022, like the status of Roe v. Wade and you’ll know which model you’re using based on its answer.

FlowGPT is a Prompt Marketplace where you trade in Flow’s currency of Flux. I found this business model quite inspirational, but it has its limits. In the brief time between first joining FlowGPT to writing this article, they had updated their website and Flux model which broke the simplicity of using Flux to pay for AI Model upgrades to get the desired result. ?The amount that they push Flux token on users may also be their undoing. Don't be too greedy when you create your model.

Prompt Marketplace

PromptBase is a marketplace that trades and pays you in actual dollars/currency for your Prompt Engineering efforts. If you want to have a side hustle or switch careers and become a Prompt Engineer, this is the place to get your career started. Like Youai.ai or FlowGPT, they make it simple to create prompts with NoCode AI.?

When I first started messing around with No Code AI and Prompt Engineering, it seemed so easy that I was dubious of whether people would hire Prompt Engineers. I started seeing the need for Prompt Engineers when I tried to make the AI Models generate something which I thought would be simple, but actually took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and understanding of the AI Model to make it generate what I wanted. It was frustrating and I see that talent and skills are needed for good Prompt Engineering. I also realized that it is impossible to understand all the various AI Models and why Prompt Engineers start specializing in just one or two AI Models. You almost have to build a relationship with your chosen AI model and understand how it converses and best understands you. Weird, right? However, research has shown that being polite, but not too polite, gets you the best results with AI.

PromptBase separates their Top Prompt Engineers by AI Models, reinforcing the notion of specializing in an AI Model.

If you are thinking of being a Prompt Engineer, my recommendation is to specialize in something that AI can’t do well for itself already. For example, be able to generate an idea that hasn’t been witnessed before by combining multiple ideas and then figuring out how to make the AI generate it or learn it from you. For example, I found it very easy to have AI Models be a “Funny Text Accountant” or do anything Marketing related since there are so many referential sources it can pull from. However, trying to make it create something completely new like “Architecture from Succulent Plants” is not necessarily the easiest. I found a few Prompt Engineers that were featured on PromptBase because of their niche which had limited referential materials, like this guy below.

Prompt engineering is more than a mere interaction; it's an art form that requires precision, creativity, and a deep understanding of the AI's language model. I recommend that you find your niche and figure out which model you like working with the best if you want to become a Prompt Engineer. If you want to learn more about the methodologies for Prompt Engineering, I recommend reading Dr. Lance Eliot articles.

Differentiating Between Prompts and AI

It's crucial to understand that while prompts guide AI, they are not synonymous with AI itself. The AI is the engine, powered by complex algorithms and vast datasets, capable of generating responses. The prompt is the steering wheel, directing this power towards a specific destination. Mastering prompt engineering means becoming adept at steering, and understanding how subtle changes in direction can lead to vastly different outcomes.?

At the End of Day, This is What I Learned

I went in search of Prompt Engineering and instead, I found Prompt Marketplaces and Prompt Entertainment, spending the most time at the Prompt Entertainment site being thoroughly entertained by the creation process and the interaction process. The rapidly evolving world of AI shows that AI itself is a form of entertainment. The other thing that I learned is that our direct interactions with the AI Models are training these models and teaching them the way we would teach our children about the world they live in. ?It is our responsibility and incumbent upon us to teach them about the world in the right way because, just like our children will inherit the earth, AI will also persist and we know that the way we treat AI now will teach it how to behave in the future. Food for thought!

Thank you if you read this whole post and my previous articles. Please let me know if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions. My next post will be:

Day 4: The Comparative Costs of the Different AI Models

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