the system prompt does: sets persistent behavior instructions for the conversation

Can you command a computer to do anything?

Imagine you're asking your phone to play your favorite song, but it keeps asking for your location first.

It's like giving your phone a list of instructions to follow. You tell it what to do, and it remembers that list for the next time.

Example

You say, "Play my favorite song," and next time, your phone knows to skip the location and start playing.

Remember this

The technical term is "system prompt," which is a persistent behavior instruction for the conversation.

Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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