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Jul 29, 2025 32 min

Rent a Black Cat!

from Celebrate Creativity Hosted by George Bartley

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - Episode 408 - Rent a Black Cat! Hopefully this will be a really fun episode of Celebrate Creativity. I want to illustrate what constitutes an effective prompt in the most entertaining way, - probably your prompt will be for business, literary, and other educational purposes - but here I am using the imaginary situation of Edgar Allan Poe applying to a company that rents pets. I never really asked the AI to answer using Poe’s style - which I could have and probably should have - but it went ahead and answered as Poe might have. And note how the AI picked up on the use of Poe’s language and easily participated in the online role - I would like to thank technology educator Dave Birsss for the idea of writing to apply for a job with an imaginary pet store, although I don’t know if he was thinking about Edgar Allan Poe! My prompt was: Starting with episode 400 of my podcast about Edgar Allan Poe and other 19th century writers, I am broadening the emphasis of my podcast to include such areas as creativity and AI. Of course one of the things that I want to try and get across is what AI can do through an effective prompt. Would you imagine that you are Edgar Allan Poe and have come to the realization that you need a new job? You are applying to a company that rents black cats. Would you write a letter to the company of why you would be a good person for that position in their company? Note that I am explaining my situation - Unfortunately, I did explain the STYLE that I want Mr. Poe to answer the letter, but the AI seemed to automatically know to answer as Poe might have using his style by literally comparing the thousands of examples of Poe’s writings that it has access to, and answers using those examples - a task that would be humanly impossible. In a real world situation, it would be preferable for you to come out and explain the style that you want Mr. Poe - or whoever you are communicating with - to use. But note that without really prompting, the AI picks up on the style of Poe and replies to each situation cleverly and appropriately - without missing a beat. It would take me forever to even approach such a task - and I have read a lot of Poe. But back to AI Poe’s answer - Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

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Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - Episode 408 - Rent a Black Cat! Hopefully this will be a really fun episode of Celebrate Creativity. I want to illustrate what constitutes an effective prompt in the most entertaining way, - probably your prompt will be for business, literary, and other educational purposes - but here I am using the imaginary situation of Edgar Allan Poe applying to a company that rents pets. I never really asked the AI to answer using Poe’s styl...

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This episode was published on July 29, 2025.

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