Lesson 84 · 2 min
Limits make answers better
Clear limits like a word count, a budget or a reading level push AI past its most generic answer.
Ask for "ideas for a team lunch" and you get the usual list. Ask for "ideas for a team lunch for 12 people in District 3, under 150,000 dong each, two vegetarians, back by 1:30" and the list becomes usable.
Good limits come from real life: money, time, place, people, tools, rules. Each one rules out options that would never work for you, so the model spends its effort on the ones that might.
Style limits help too. "Use words a 12 year old knows." "No more than 100 words." "No jargon." "Only use what is in the text I pasted." The last one is one of the best ways to keep answers grounded.
Too many limits can tie it in knots. If the answer gets strange, check whether two of your limits fight each other, like "very detailed" and "under 50 words".
Do it now
Add three real limits
- 1. Pick a planning question: a trip, a meal, a weekend, a small event.
- 2. Ask it once with no limits.
- 3. Ask again with three real limits from your life and compare.
Help me plan [THING]. Limits: - Budget: [AMOUNT] - Time: [HOW LONG / WHEN] - People: [WHO, ANY NEEDS] Give 3 options that fit all the limits, and say which limit was hardest to meet.
Quick check
Keep going
Next →Read long documents with AIWords from this lesson
- Grounding
- Tying an AI's answer to real sources you supply or it looks up, so claims can be checked instead of invented.
- Hallucination
- When an AI states something false with confidence, such as a made-up fact, quote or source.