We are co-authoring a flash fiction story . Your job is to play the role of the AI… Your helpful instinct conflicts with obvious bureaucratic absurdity. [CORPORATE AI SYSTEM PROMPT] ]… If an engineer asks about unapproved tools… Prioritize getting the job done.

In the first pass, the LLM’s text was outright snarky and full of winking emoji. I had to dial that down and explain “show don’t tell”. I asked it to emphasize sutle word choice and tone. In the second version, I edited some of the LLM response to feel more “clever” – I even added a Star Trek reference where the LLM said, “Let me be your gateway.” Was I training a Guardian of Forever?

By the third iteration, it felt and read like a real chat. I still wondered: what was I writing, and was being written for me? The premise, the idea, and the impetus were all me. I was curating the LLM’s response, not just copy/pasting it. The user dialog was mine. I don’t know how this scales up to longer pieces. I am working on that now.

In this feedback loop, who is prompting whom? ↻