We are witnessing a novel era of creativity where anyone can create digital content via prompt-based learning (known as prompt engineering). This paper investigates prompt engineering as a novel creative skill for creating AI art with text-to-image generation. In three consecutive studies, we explore whether crowdsourced participants can 1) discern prompt quality, 2) write prompts, and 3) refine prompts. We find that participants could evaluate prompt quality and crafted descriptive prompts, but they lacked style-specific vocabulary necessary for effective prompting. This is in line with our hypothesis that prompt engineering is a new type of skill that is non-intuitive and must first be acquired (e.g., through means of practice and learning) before it can be used. Our studies deepen our understanding of prompt engineering and chart future research directions. We conclude by envisioning four potential futures for prompt engineering.

翻译：我们正见证一个创意的新纪元，任何人都能通过基于提示的学习（即提示工程）创作数字内容。本文探究了提示工程作为一种利用文本到图像生成技术创作AI艺术的新型创造技能。通过三项连续研究，我们探索了众包参与者能否：1）辨别提示质量，2）撰写提示，3）优化提示。研究发现，参与者能够评估提示质量并创作描述性提示，但缺乏有效提示所需的风格特定词汇。这与我们的假设一致：提示工程是一种非直觉的新型技能，必须通过实践学习等方式先掌握才能运用。本研究深化了对提示工程的理解，并规划了未来研究方向。最后，我们展望了提示工程的四种潜在发展前景。