Adding the four words “Ask me questions first” to a ChatGPT prompt prevents the AI from making assumptions that lead to incorrect or hollow outputs, according to a Forbes article. The article explains that without this phrase, ChatGPT fills gaps with assumptions, often going in a “wildly different direction” from the user’s intent, leading to time-consuming re-prompting and edits. It notes that “an hour a day of this becomes five hours a week,” costing “thousands.” By using the four words, the AI knows it “needs to scrutinise” and will ask questions about the direction and purpose of the work, filling in missing context. The article illustrates this with an example of asking ChatGPT to write a LinkedIn post: without the phrase, the output is “hollow, inauthentic, and reads like it was written by a robot”; with it, the AI digs deeper into the user’s beliefs to produce a better result, preventing “expensive and time-consuming mistakes.”