What is a prompt in the context of NLP?

In the context of Natural Language Processing (NLP), a prompt is commonly understood as a natural language description of a task. It serves as an input provided to an NLP model to elicit a specific response or action based on that input. Essentially, the prompt guides the model's interpretation and response, allowing it to perform tasks such as text generation, question-answering, or summarization.

For example, if a user needs a summary of a text, the user may provide a prompt like "Please summarize the following article." This interaction illustrates how prompts direct the model to understand what is being asked and to deliver the appropriate output. Thus, the definition of a prompt encompasses its role as a critical component in guiding language models in their operations and generating meaningful results based on user instructions.