Careful with Word Order for ChatGPT
As I was writing a paper for one of my classes, I turned to ChatGPT for help with synonyms. I used to refer to the thesaurus, but the ease and amount of options made ChatGPT the obvious resource to use… Or so I thought.
ChatGPT in the past allowed me to input the most simple request, and it would immediately output what I was looking for. But for some reason, the day I went to request a synonym for “regarding”, the LLM was stuck!
Prompt:
regarding synonym
Response:
Could you please provide more context or specify the word you need a synonym for? This will help me provide a more accurate suggestion.
Of course, I understood that ChatGPT was processing an incomplete request to do something with the word synonym from the conversation above, but I was shocked that its first instinct wasn’t just outputting the synonym. So then I typed…
Prompt:
synonym for regarding
Response:
A synonym for “regarding” could be “concerning,” “relating to,” “pertaining to,” “in relation to,” or “with respect to.” Each of these alternatives can be used interchangeably with “regarding” to indicate the subject of discussion or consideration.
Just an interesting experience I had regarding the order of words using LLMs! For us native English speakers, the ordering shouldn’t make a difference (especially when inflections, tone, and context are implied), but it’s hard for an LLM to guess our interpretation 100% of the time. Remember to prompt your LLM as accurately and direct as possible for the best results!