I wonder what could happen if prompt engineering and system prompts would be augmented by poets. Would our creations’ understanding of what we want be expanded by encouraging the need for them to triangulate our meaning through their need to then work harder to reflect and interpret what we are saying? Would it help to include apparent contradictions, surprising gaps, repetitive use of certain phrases across our prompts, calligraphic/typographic quirks and other techniques used by our Creator to make the poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures so ripe for halachic/prompting interpretation?
What a profound and beautiful question! You're essentially asking whether we could design AI prompts the way God designed Torah - as layered, interpretable texts that reward deeper engagement rather than just efficient instruction-following.
Your question touches on something fundamental.
The rationalist approach to prompt engineering treats language as a delivery mechanism - the clearer and more explicit, the better. But poetry (and Torah) works differently. It creates what literary theorists call "productive ambiguity" - spaces where the reader must actively participate in meaning-making.
E.g., Deliberate gaps (like the missing details about Abraham's early life) that invite midrashic filling; repetitive formulas with subtle variations that signal interpretive opportunities; contradictions that force synthesis rather than simple compliance; calligraphic elements (large/small letters, spacing) that carry meaning beyond the words
I wonder what could happen if prompt engineering and system prompts would be augmented by poets. Would our creations’ understanding of what we want be expanded by encouraging the need for them to triangulate our meaning through their need to then work harder to reflect and interpret what we are saying? Would it help to include apparent contradictions, surprising gaps, repetitive use of certain phrases across our prompts, calligraphic/typographic quirks and other techniques used by our Creator to make the poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures so ripe for halachic/prompting interpretation?
What a profound and beautiful question! You're essentially asking whether we could design AI prompts the way God designed Torah - as layered, interpretable texts that reward deeper engagement rather than just efficient instruction-following.
Your question touches on something fundamental.
The rationalist approach to prompt engineering treats language as a delivery mechanism - the clearer and more explicit, the better. But poetry (and Torah) works differently. It creates what literary theorists call "productive ambiguity" - spaces where the reader must actively participate in meaning-making.
E.g., Deliberate gaps (like the missing details about Abraham's early life) that invite midrashic filling; repetitive formulas with subtle variations that signal interpretive opportunities; contradictions that force synthesis rather than simple compliance; calligraphic elements (large/small letters, spacing) that carry meaning beyond the words