AI Paraphrasing Tool | GPT-3 Prompt Testing

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To improve our Wordbot.io AI Paraphrasing Tool, we’re continually testing new ai prompts. At this stage, GPT-3 prompt design is more an art than science and requires many hours of tweaking, testing, and reiterating. As we tweak our prompts, I like to sporadically post our prompt testing so people can see the progress being made on Wordbot. 

In this rewrite post, I’ll be testing our latest GPT-3 prompt, which is version 6 and still in testing. When I say in testing, I mean we’re still tweaking, testing, and reiterating on it. Once we feel it is a concrete improvement over version 5, we’ll introduce the prompt into Wordbot and make it to our users.

AI Paraphrasing Tool | Rewriting Current Event Paragraphs

Below is an excerpt from an NPR article discussing the Russian tensions with the West and possible invasion of Ukraine. I used the title of the article and the first four paragraphs. We’re going to show the original text, the rewritten text, and my notes on the rewrites.

This rewrite poses some challenges. Its current events and has several country names, people’s names, government titles, acronyms, and dates. It also contains several large compound sentences.

AI Paraphrasing Tool | The Results

Original:

NATO and Russia are in high-level talks as Ukraine tensions simmer

Rewrite:

As tensions simmer, NATO and Russia are in high-level talks.

Notes:

I liked the headline rewrite,  but it dropped the word Ukraine. I feel Ukraine should’ve been kept and placed after the word simmer – As tensions simmer over Ukraine. . .. Because of this, I chose to run the headline through the prompt a second time. This time I chose the headline rewrite of The often-tense talks between NATO and Russia about Ukraine's situation are continuing.

Not bad and quite different than the first rewrite. This time, it kept Ukraine, but dropped the fact that the tensions are simmering, which I want to keep. Ultimately, the best rewrite is going to be me combining the two rewritten headlines into one.

Original:

Senior NATO and Russian officials are meeting Wednesday to try to bridge seemingly irreconcilable differences over the future of Ukraine, amid deep skepticism that Russian President Vladimir Putin's security proposals for easing tensions are genuine.

Rewrite:

NATO and Russian officials met Wednesday in an attempt to bridge seeming irreconcilable differences over the future of Ukraine.

Notes:

I really like this sentence rewrite. It dropped the second part of the sentence entirely and condensed the first part. I like the condensed version. If you feel the second part is needed, you could run the sentence through the prompt a second time. You could also run only the second part, take the rewrite, and work it back into the first part or make a second sentence. 

Our prompt proposes three rewrites for a sentence. I chose the rewrite you see above, however one of the rewrites did keep the second part of the sentence. It just wasn’t the best of the three in my opinion, so I chose the condensed sentence.

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Original:

The meeting comes during a week of high-stakes diplomacy and a U.S.-led effort to prevent preparations for what Washington believes could be a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow denies it is planning an attack. Still, its history of military action in Ukraine and Georgia worries NATO.

Rewrite:

The meeting is occurring at a time of high stakes diplomacy and the U.S.-led effort to prevent preparations for what Washington believes could be a Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin denies that it is planning an attack. Still, the history of military action in Ukraine and Georgia worries NATO.

Notes:

This was our first paragraph rewrite. Although our ai paraphrasing tool rewrites sentence-by-sentence, you can see the approach works great for rewriting entire paragraphs. We went from 49 words to 52 words, so word count didn’t change much. The rewrite used Kremlin to represent Russia instead of Moscow. This rewrite is a great example of changing basic structure and word choice to produce different content, but hold the original meaning.

Original:

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin will lead Moscow's delegation at the NATO-Russia Council, the first time it's convened in over two years. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will also be at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Rewrite:

Russia is sending a deputy foreign minister and a deputy defense minister to a NATO-Russia Council meeting for the first time in two years. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will be in Brussels at NATO headquarters.

Notes:

The first sentence is so literal, the prompt struggled to find a rewrite. It swapped some small words out, but otherwise returned the original sentence. Because of this, I ran it through the ai paraphrasing tool a second time and got a good rewrite. The AI basically dropped the actual names of the foreign minister and deputy defense minister.

For the second sentence and considering again we’re dealing with a very literal title, name, country, and acronym, the Ai paraphraser prompt did a good job rewriting it. It essentially re-ordered the backend of the sentence swapping the position of Brussels and NATO.

Original:

The meeting is due to run for about three hours. The NATO-Russia Council, their chief forum for talks, was set up two decades ago but full meetings paused when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It has met only sporadically since, the last time in July 2019.

Rewrite:

They're expected to meet for about three hours. The NATO-Russia Council was set up two decades ago and had meetings until Russia annexed Crimea's Crimea Peninsula in 2014. It has only met sporadically since then, the last time in July 2019.

Notes:

The ai paraphrasing tool excelled rewriting this paragraph of three sentences. It took the paragraph from 49 words to 42 words and structured the sentences better than the original. The prompt also produced several other quality rewrites for this paragraph – remember I only chose my favorite of the three for each sentence. 

AI Paraphrasing Tool Testing | Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed following along as I tested our V6 GPT-3 rewrite prompt. This article was full of government titles, peoples’ names, country names, dates, and many other things that can pose problems for ai paraphrasing tools. I feel our V6 prompt did a very good job of producing rewrites. We’ll continue to do more testing and hopefully get V6 implemented into Wordbot soon.