Self-check

What this technique does

Set five conditions and the AI will hand you, with complete confidence, an answer that meets three or four of them — over the length limit, or missing the item you said to keep. Add a line at the end that gets ChatGPT to check its own answer, and it drafts, goes through the conditions one by one, fixes what is off and shows you the final version only.

The key is that the things to check have to be countable. “Natural” cannot be checked, but “under 300 characters” and “includes the date and the venue” can.

Good example / bad example

Bad

cut this notice down to 300 characters

(notice pasted)

Good

Please cut the notice below to under 300 characters. The date, the venue and the application deadline all have to stay, and it should be in a polite register.

After drafting, check each of the conditions above, fix anything that does not comply, and show only the final version.

The bad example routinely comes back over 400 characters, or with the deadline gone. The good one goes through the three conditions one at a time and gives you the corrected final version, so you can take it and paste it in as it is.

How to write it

• After drafting, check each of the conditions above, fix anything that does not comply, and show only the final version.
• Check the draft against the checklist below, and fix only the items that do not pass.
• Count the characters yourself and write the number down; if it is over the limit, cut it and show it again.

Watch out

It sometimes writes “all conditions met” while something is in fact off. For conditions you can verify with a number, look over the result yourself once more.

Push the checklist to ten items and it concentrates on hitting conditions until the writing goes stiff. Keep only the three or four that really have to hold.

Unfamiliar terms? See Aha AI: self-consistency

Turn on Self-check in the builder to add this sentence: “After drafting, check each of the conditions above, fix anything that does not comply, and show only the final version.” Open the builder →