💻 Top 12 Free AI Resources for ChatGPT & Midjourney AI Prompting

Introduction to Free AI Prompt Engineering Guide

According to the Microsoft New Future of Work Report 2023, prompts are the primary interface for both users and developers to interact with large language models, but consistently developing effective prompts is a challenge.

Creating a good prompt is a bit like magic. It's not about fixing software problems, but with the right choice of words, you can do amazing things like:

• Get more accurate answers

• Make a boring robot fun and lively

• Avoid making mistakes or saying the wrong thing

• Handle tricky situations like bad prompts or rude language

This is all about learning how to write prompts well.

Now, how can you learn this skill? There are many expensive courses and programs out there. But don't worry! The internet is like a treasure-filled forest from an old video game, full of great free resources. I've looked around to find the best free stuff for you, from easy beginner tips to more complex techniques for writing text, code, and even creating AI art. The goal is to make this skill available to everyone. Let's get started!

Top 12 Free AI Resources to Master AI Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT & Midjourney

1. Advanced MidJourney Prompt Engineering | Unleash Your Inner Artist

James Bachini talks about MidJourney, a tool that creates amazing AI-generated images. He shares his experience and tips to help you use it better, even if you're not good at art.

Main Points:

MidJourney Commands:

Start with a Discord account and join MidJourney. You get free credits to begin. Use commands like "/imagine prompt" to describe your image and add special instructions (flags).

Tips for Better Prompts:

• Avoid negative words.

• Keep it simple with 2-3 main ideas.

• Balance different parts of your prompt.

• Be patient with image rendering.

• Stick to a style for a consistent look.

• Use brackets to combine ideas.

MidJourney Flags:

Learn important settings like image version, aspect ratio, style, quality, and video creation.

Styles and Artists:

Experiment with various styles (like painting or sketching) and famous artists to get different looks.

Example Prompts:

James gives examples of how to write prompts for different images, like robots, old women, world globes, horse carts, and racing cars.

Using an Image Editor:

Combine MidJourney with image editing tools to enhance your creations, like making a logo.

Overview:

• Level: Suitable for those with some experience to advanced learners.

• Time Needed: About 1 to 2 hours.

• Resources: Written materials, examples of prompts and images, plus a YouTube video for guidance.

2. OpenAI: Cookbook

This big guide has many examples of prompts for software work. It's useful for language models, Whisper, and DALL-E.

Note: You need some Python knowledge for the code.

OpenAI Cookbook in a Jupyter Notebook covers:

• How to use the API

• GPT (language model)

• Embeddings (data representations)

• Applications

• Fine-tuning models

• DALL-E (image model)

• Whisper (audio model)

• Azure OpenAI service

Overview:

• Level: For advanced users

• Time Needed: Takes weeks to go through. Great for both learning and getting ideas.

• Resources: Code samples, online repositories, and Jupyter notebooks with full explanations and introductions.

3. ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers

This course has nine detailed video lessons on prompt engineering for coding, taught by Isa Fulford and Andrew Ng. You need to sign up to watch. It's mainly for software engineers, but anyone interested can learn a lot. Knowing some Python helps with the examples. It's free for now but might become paid later.

The course from DeepLearning.ai covers topics like:

• Introduction

• Basic rules

• Step-by-step method

• Summarizing info

• Drawing conclusions

• Changing forms

• Adding details

• Using chatbots

Overview:

• Level: People with some experience to advanced learners.

• Time Needed: About 90 minutes to watch the videos, and a few days to try out what you learn.

• Resources: Video lessons and example notebooks to follow along.

4. Prompt Engineering Guide

This guide by Elvis Saravia is all about learning how to write prompts. It uses examples and research, especially with OpenAI's text-davinci-003 model.

What it covers:

• Basic ideas and parts of prompts

• Different ways to write prompts, like zero-shot, few-shot, and chain-of-thought

• How to use prompts in programs and for creating data and code

• A list of models and their details

• Possible problems when writing prompts

• Research papers for more info

Overview:

• Level: Good for people with some experience and advanced learners.

• Time Needed: A few hours for the beginning part. The rest might take weeks - it's good to keep coming back to it.

• Resources: Written information and examples.

This guide is really full of good ideas. It's not super easy for beginners, though. Check it out soon, as it might not be free forever.

5. Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT

This is a 3-week free course taught by Jules White that teaches you about prompt engineering, from the basics to more advanced stuff. You can pay $49 if you want tests and a certificate.

Here’s what you'll learn:

• What a prompt is

• Different types of prompts

• How to create a 'persona' in prompts

• 'Root' prompts—the basic kind

• How to make better questions

• Checking if the AI understands correctly

• Creating prompts for different audiences

• 'ReAct' prompting technique

Overview:

• Level: Everyone, from beginners to advanced learners.

• Time Needed: It lasts 3 weeks, with 6 hours of study each week.

• Resources: Videos, examples in the ChatGPT playground, scripts, and research paper references.

This course is like a real university class. It needs your full attention but teaches a lot, from basic to complex topics. If you like fast and short videos, this might not be for you. But I found the advanced topics really interesting and learned a lot.

6. Guide to Effective Communication with AI at Learnprompting.org

Learnprompting.org offers a ton of tips and examples on how to talk to AI. It starts with the basics of AI and goes into how to create prompts for ChatGPT, the science behind prompt writing, and more.

The first part for beginners includes:

• Basic concepts

• Intro to AI

• How to use ChatGPT

• The basics of writing prompts

• Embedding prompts in learning

• How to give clear instructions

• Assigning roles in prompts

• Using few-shot prompts

• Mixing different methods

• Making your prompts clear and structured

• Getting chatbots ready

• Practicing in OpenAI's playground

Overview:

• Level: From beginners to advanced users.

• Time Needed: The beginner part takes 1–2 days, but the whole resource is great for coming back to whenever you need ideas or help.

• Resources: Written guides, real examples, and practice activities (you'll need an API key for some parts).

This site is packed with useful info and is made with a lot of care. It's perfect for anyone looking to get better at communicating with AI.

7. 10 Need-to-Know Techniques

This course represents a personal effort to make the skill of crafting prompts widely accessible. It condenses essential prompt-writing techniques into a concise 45-minute lesson. Additionally, it includes two cheat sheets to assist learners in developing their own prompts.

Participants will master the 10 most crucial strategies for creating effective prompts, including:

• Providing clear instructions.

• Specifying the desired output format.

• Utilizing prompt templates.

• Incorporating relevant data context.

• Employing few-shot examples.

• Addressing scenarios where responses are uncertain or refused, thus managing potential misunderstandings or sensitive topics.

• Implementing chain-of-thought prompting to guide reasoning processes.

• Maintaining a record of conversation history for context.

• Formatting prompts with headlines, labels, and delimiters for clarity.

• Understanding the structure of a professionally crafted prompt.

  

Overview:

• Level: The course is designed for both beginners and those with intermediate skills.

• Time Needed: Learners are expected to spend 15 minutes reading and an additional 30 minutes exploring the examples.

• Resources: The course offers textual guidance, cheat sheets, and practical examples for hands-on learning.

8. Best practices for prompt engineering with OpenAI API

This beginner's guide on how to write prompts comes directly from the creators of ChatGPT. It's a great starting point for learning how to make prompts that work well.

Here's what it covers:

• How to keep your instructions clear and separate from the main content.

• The importance of using detailed and specific language.

• How to clearly state what you want as a response.

• The difference between giving the AI no examples, one example, or a few examples to learn from.

• Focusing on telling the AI what to do instead of what not to do.

• The use of leading words to guide the AI's response.

OpenAI provides this useful material. It's a quick read and practice, taking about 10 to 15 minutes, and it includes examples to help you get the hang of it.

In short, this tutorial is perfect for getting down to the basics of prompt writing. Even if you're familiar with some of these ideas, it's a nice refresher.

Overview:

• Level: Designed for beginners.

• Time needed: Roughly 10-15 minutes.

• Resources: Instructions and examples in written form.

9. ChatGPT Prompt Engineering Course

If you're new to writing prompts and want to learn the basics, the "ChatGPT Prompt Engineering Course" on Class Central is a great free option. This course is all about teaching you the foundations of prompt engineering and some basics about how AI that can generate text works.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• What generative AI is and how it creates text.

• An introduction to Natural Language Processing (NLP), which helps computers understand human language.

• How Generative Pretrained Transformers (GPT) work to generate text.

• The basics of how to write good prompts.

• There are different kinds of prompts you can use.

• More advanced techniques in prompting.

This course is perfect if you're starting from zero and don't know much about AI yet. It’s designed to make complex ideas simple and understandable, breaking down prompt engineering into bite-sized lessons.

In short, this is an ideal beginner’s guide to getting to grips with prompt engineering. It’s quick to get through and packed with examples to practice with.

Overview:

• Level: Designed for beginners.

• Time needed: 2-3 hours.

• Resources: You’ll get straightforward instructions and practical examples.

10. Mindmap Prompt Engineering

This Mindmap covers:

• Use external tools

• Test changes systematically

• Split complex tasks into simpler subtasks

• Write clear instructions

• Provide reference text

• Give the model time to “think”

Overview:

• Level: Designed for beginners.

• Time needed: 30 minutes.

11. Free Midjourney Course for Beginners by Skillademia

• This free Midjourney course for beginners is a comprehensive guide to creating AI-powered art, offering a deep dive into the platform's capabilities, including advanced techniques and community engagement.

• Professor Horton leads a 10-hour extended course on AI art generation with Midjourney, emphasizing creativity enhancement through understanding platform parameters, model versions, and leveraging community features.

• Midjourney, using GPT-4 technology, has become a popular tool among artists and creatives for generating diverse, unique, and visually stunning artwork, with ongoing enhancements to its features and user experience.

• The course covers practical aspects of using Midjourney, such as subscription plans, image upscaling, and customization, alongside project-based learning for real-world applications like coloring books and merchandise.

  The cool part is, the video description has time stamps. This means you can jump straight to the bits you're interested in learning more about.

12. Midjourney & ChatGPT: Unleash AI for Unique Image Generation

The "Midjourney & ChatGPT: Unleash AI for Unique Image Generation" course is a beginner-friendly guide to making cool pictures using AI, with no need for prior tech know-how. It's for anyone who likes to create, from designers to bloggers, or even if you're just curious.

Here's what you'll do:

• Start by signing up for free on Midjourney.

• Learn how AI can help you make awesome images from simple instructions.

• Get to know how to tell Midjourney exactly what you want, whether it's logos, product photos, or anything else creative.

• Find out tricks to make even better images and use them for your work or fun projects.

It's split into easy steps, from basic setup to getting creative with your projects. By the end, you'll know how to make unique images quickly, saving you time and possibly even money. It's all about unlocking your creative side with the help of AI.

Conclusion

Alright, so here's the deal: Learning how to write prompts for ChatGPT, Midjourney, and similar AI tools is like learning a new superpower. It's all about telling AI what to do in a way that makes sense. And guess what? You don't have to spend a dime to get started. We've found some of the best free resources out there that can take you from a beginner to pretty much a wizard at this stuff.

You'll get to play around with making art, writing better prompts, and even turning a boring robot chat into something fun. There's stuff for everyone, whether you're just curious, want to spice up your social media, or need to get more technical with coding and AI.

In short, these free courses and guides are like your personal treasure map. They'll show you the ropes, help you avoid common mistakes, and let you have fun along the way. So, dive in, start learning, and see where this AI journey takes you!

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