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Fancy the idea of earning $335,000 (£270,000) a year?
Well, the revolutionary new AI bot ChatGPT – which has taken the internet by storm since its release last year – may be able to help you do just that.
That’s because its emergence has had the knock-on effect of creating a burgeoning new job market where companies are desperate for “AI whisperers.”
In fact, many of the positions don’t actually require a specialist degree in computer engineering.
Officially called ‘prompt engineers’, the jobs see people trying to improve the results ChatGPT provides and better train a company’s staff so they can get the most out of using the tool.
Fancy the idea of earning $335,000 (£270,000) a year? Well, the revolutionary new AI bot ChatGPT – which has taken the internet by storm since its release last year – just might help you do just that
The new market is thriving so much that companies like Google-backed startup Anthropic are advertising salaries of up to $335,000 (£270,000) for a ‘Prompt Engineer and Librarian’ in San Francisco (pictured)
“It’s like an AI whisperer,” said Leytonstone engineer Albert Phelps promptly Bloomberg.
“You’ll often find fast engineers with backgrounds in history, philosophy, or English, because they’re puns.
“You’re trying to distill the essence or meaning of something into a limited number of words.”
Phelps, 29, revealed that he and his colleagues are tasked with writing messages or “prompts” for AI bots like ChatGPT.
These can then be saved so that his customers can use them later and improve their understanding of the tool.
He said he writes five different prompts on a typical day and has about 50 interactions with ChatGPT.
Phelps studied history at the University of Warwick and then worked as a consultant for Clydesdale Bank and Barclays Plc.
He was inspired to learn more about artificial intelligence after attending a lecture at a UK government-funded institute, which in turn led to his current position at Accenture.
The job market is booming to the point that companies like Google-backed startup Anthropic are advertising salaries of up to $335,000 (£270,000) for a ‘Prompt Engineer and Librarian’ in San Francisco.
The post says the role includes building “a library of high-quality prompts or prompt chains to perform a variety of tasks, with a simple guide to help users search for the one that fits their needs” and it building “a series of tutorials and interactive tools that teach our customers the art of prompt engineering.”
Applicants with basic programming skills and “a high degree” of familiarity with large language models would be a good fit, the job posting shows, but the company wants people to apply “even if you don’t think you meet all the qualifications.”
Other positions include a $230,000 (£187,000) salary for a machine learning engineer who can “question and understand how to produce the best output” from AI tools.
OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft Corp., made ChatGPT available to the public for free at the end of November
London law firm Mishcon de Reya and Boston Children’s Hospital have also advertised fast-track engineer roles.
Anna Bernstein, a fast engineer at Copy.ai, was a freelance writer before she started working with AI.
“I like the ‘mad scientist’ part of the job where I can come up with a stupid idea for a prompt and see it actually work,” she shared Business Insider.
“As a poet, the role also feeds my obsessive nature with impromptu language. It’s a very strange intersection of my literary background and analytical thinking.’
Mark Standen, who heads the artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation staffing business at Hays in the UK, told Bloomberg that the market for fast engineers was the “fastest evolving in 25 years.”
He added that while salaries start at £40,000 ($49,000), expert prompt engineers can “name their price” and charge up to £200,000 ($247,000) or £300,000 ($371,000) a year.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who created ChatGPT, has spoken before about the need for fast engineers.
Last month he tweeted that “writing a great prompt for a chatbot character is an amazingly powerful skill.”
OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft Corp., made ChatGPT available to the public for free at the end of November.
It’s easy (and free) to use and can help with everything from writing job reports to making diet plans to applying for a job.
ChatGPT can understand long and detailed prompts, so if you want it to write an email, for example, you can specify ‘in a polite and businesslike manner’, and it will style the text to fit.
Or you can specify a specific word count or target audience, such as “so a five-year-old can understand.”
If you need text in a specific format (for example, a cover letter, email, tweet, or similar), ChatGPT will happily output text in that format.