few-shot prompting

A prompt that contains more than one (a "few") example demonstrating how the large language model should respond. For example, the following lengthy prompt contains two examples showing a large language model how to answer a query.

Few-shot prompting generally produces more desirable results than zero-shot prompting and one-shot prompting. However, few-shot prompting requires a lengthier prompt. Few-shot prompting is a form of few-shot learning applied to prompt-based learning. See Prompt engineering in Machine Learning Crash Course for more information.

Practitioners refer to few-shot prompting when building, training, or evaluating machine learning systems. It appears in research papers, product documentation, and technical discussions about AI capabilities and limitations.