Shot prompting

Working with the OpenAI API

James Chapman

Curriculum Manager, DataCamp

Providing examples

A robot looks at examples

Shot prompting

What is shot prompting?

Shot prompting: including examples to guide AI responses

Zero-shot: no examples, just instructions
One-shot: one example guides the response
Few-shot: multiple examples provide more context

Zero to few shots represantation

Why does shot prompting matter?

✅ Use cases of shot prompting:

📑 Text classification
💬 Sentiment analysis
🔍 Data extraction
✨ ... and many more!

Use cases of shot prompting

Zero-shot prompting

prompt = """Classify sentiment as 1-5 (bad-good) in the following statements:
1. Meal was decent, but I've had better.
2. My food was delayed, but drinks were good.
"""

...

1. Meal was decent, but I've had better. - 3 (Neutral)
2. My food was delayed, but drinks were good. - 3 (Neutral)

One-shot prompting

prompt = """Classify sentiment as 1-5 (bad-good) in the following statements:
1. The service was very slow -> 1
2. Meal was decent, but I've had better. ->
3. My food was delayed, but drinks were good. ->
"""

1. The service was very slow -> 1
2. Meal was decent, but I've had better. -> 3
3. My food was delayed, but drinks were good. -> 4

Few-shot prompting

prompt = """Classify sentiment as 1-5 (bad-good) in the following statements:
1. The service was very slow -> 1
2. The steak was awfully good! -> 5
3. It was ok, no massive complaints. -> 3
4. Meal was decent, but I've had better. ->
5. My food was delayed, but drinks were good. ->
"""

1. The service was very slow -> 1
2. The steak was awfully good! -> 5
3. It was ok, no massive complaints. -> 3
4. Meal was decent, but I've had better. -> 4
5. My food was delayed, but drinks were good. -> 3

General categorization

prompt = """Classify the following animals as Land, Sea, or Both:
1. Blue whale
2. Polar bear
3. Salmon
4. Dog
"""

1. **Blue whale** - Sea
2. **Polar bear** - Both (primarily land but is a marine mammal that lives in sea ice)
3. **Salmon** - Both (spends part of its life in freshwater and part in the ocean)
4. **Dog** - Land

prompt = """Classify the following animals as Land, Sea, or Both:
1. Zebra = Land
2. Crocodile = Both
3. Blue whale = 
4. Polar bear = 
5. Salmon = 
6. Dog = 
"""

1. Zebra = Land
2. Crocodile = Both
3. Blue whale = Sea
4. Polar bear = Both
5. Salmon = Sea
6. Dog = Land

Let's practice!

Working with the OpenAI API