Talking to AI — The Magic of Good Questions

ChatGPT is a very smart parrot

Remember from Lesson 1 — AI language tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are word-predicting machines. They learned by reading trillions of words humans wrote. When you ask them something, they write the next words that are most likely to come after your question.

This means: the quality of what you get out depends on how you ask. If you type a fuzzy question, you get a fuzzy answer. If you type a clear question, you get a clear answer. That's it.

The "clear question" trick — five things to include

Whenever you ask AI for something, try to answer these five questions in your prompt:

1. Who are you? ("I am a Grade 6 student in Kenya…")
2. What do you need? ("…and I need to write a paragraph about elephants…")
3. Who will read it? ("…for my teacher, Mrs. Wanjiku…")
4. How long / what shape? ("…around 80 words, with 3 facts…")
5. What should it feel like? ("…friendly and easy to read aloud.")

When you put all five together, your question becomes:

Try it. The answer will blow you away.

Two example prompts — see the difference

❌ Bad prompt

ChatGPT will give you 600 boring words. Probably too hard for Grade 6.

✅ Good prompt

ChatGPT will give you exactly 5 short, interesting facts you could actually use in class.

Rules for talking to AI (these are important)

1. Be specific. "Tell me a story" is weak. "Tell me a funny 100-word story about a goat that lost its way in Nairobi" is strong.
2. Tell it WHO it should be. "Pretend you are a patient Kiswahili teacher. Explain 'Methali' to a 10-year-old."
3. Don't be rude. You don't need to say "please" (AI doesn't have feelings), but being polite doesn't cost anything. It also keeps YOUR habits good.
4. Keep going if the answer is not good. Say "Make this shorter." "Use simpler words." "Add an example a Kenyan kid would understand." It will try again.

The golden safety rule

NEVER tell AI things about you or your family that a stranger shouldn't know.

This means: do NOT type your full name, your school name, your home address, your phone number, your mum's M-Pesa number, or a picture of yourself that shows your face. AI tools sometimes save what you type. A stranger might see it one day. Treat AI like a friendly stranger in the market. You would talk to them, but you wouldn't give them your home address.