This is an interesting article about “The Step-around” which I have been doing intuitively since day 1:
Prompt Engineering Technique Known As The Step-Around Is Gaining Steam As Generative AI Becomes Less Forthright
The Step-Around Prompt And How It Has Come To Be
By the phrasing of being a said-to-be “step-around prompt”, the gist is that you purposely word your prompt to evade being detected as having provided a question or matter considered sensitive in nature or consideration. You are trying to dig deeper into the AI and not get snagged at the front porch. Most of today’s generative AI apps are rigged to immediately reject a prompt that the AI maker has already decided is unfit for answering.
Not everyone likes this kind of “Big Brother” automated prescreening and likens this path to censoring user’s questions. If you are interested in the ongoing heated debate about when and why modern-day generative AI should or should not refuse to answer a question, see my analysis at the link here. Significant issues underlying AI ethics and AI law come into play in this contentious matter. Please know we are in the early days of generative AI adoption and the AI Wild West might inevitably be rejiggered by ethical precepts or additional laws and regulations.
