5 years ago nobody heard about a profession called "prompt engineer". Now there are CVs on Linkedin showcasing this big time.
The first reaction when we read this kind of news is: "wow, the world moves so fast! So many new professions in such a short amount of time. Crazy!"
I beg to differ.
The world revolves around the Sun at the same pace as it did for the last few millennia. There are no real new professions, just new names for some old stuff.
Let's talk a little about this "prompt engineering". Is it really a profession?
For what is worth, what a prompt engineer does is chatting with a computer and try to make it do what he wants. Or should I say "sweet talking" to a computer and try to cheat it into doing what he wants. Maybe. I think the second way of putting it is more accurate.
Because that's really all there is to it, just sweet talking, going around the corners, subtle lying, over and over again, until some piece of software submits and surrenders.
Is it really something that we can call a profession? Is it really something that only a few people can do? After taking extensive training and skill prepping? I mean, come on.
The world today is a bit too full of itself. The, oh, so popular AI is not a superintelligence. It's just something spitting out plausible words. It does feel like a superintelligence. To some remote village that never saw a computer it may even be sold as a superintelligence, in the same way the Middle Ages sailors were selling beads to remote tribes, touting them as powerful talismans. But at the end of the day it's just a piece of software sitting on a piece of hardware that needs electricity. That's all there is to it.
There are no prompt engineers out there. There are only people who know how to talk.
And that's a skills as old as humanity itself.