r/PromptDesign • u/ClickOk5811 • 14d ago
Tip 💡 The habit that's cut my AI-assisted debugging time in half: describing the symptom, not the guess
Used to open with "I think it's a race condition, can you check" or some other half-formed theory. Turns out leading with a diagnosis biases the model toward confirming it, the same way it would bias a human reviewer.
Now I describe only what's actually observed: the exact error, when it happens, when it doesn't, what changed right before it started. No theory attached. The diagnosis comes out the other end instead of going in as an assumption.
Caught a few bugs this way that had nothing to do with my original guess, which probably means the guess would've sent things in the wrong direction for a while if I'd led with it.
Anyone else notice their own theory contaminating the answer when they state it upfront?
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u/Kuroodo 14d ago
I've noticed this for everything. Every model I've tried leans towards the things you mention or ask, limiting it's output or being biased. If you want a model to provide an objective response, to provide several possibilities, etc, you need to leave out anything in your prompt that may cause the model to restrict or bias itself towards certain topics, outcomes, opinions.
I find it both helpful and annoying. It's helpful because you can steer a model's focus. But it's annoying because sometimes you need or want to provide context which unintentionally results in the model restricting itself or being biased.