SECAI Core · phase 5 of 15 · noun

Multi-shot prompting

An AI prompting technique where several example input-output pairs are provided in the prompt before the real query so the model can infer the desired pattern, style, or task from those multiple examples and apply it to the new input

The Explain card

Plain English
Multi-shot prompting (also called few-shot) supplies several example input-output pairs before the real query, so the model can infer the pattern, style or task from the set.
Example
To triage vulnerability reports, a prompt includes five past reports with the severity the team assigned to each. The model then rates a new report, matching the team's conventions more closely than an unguided model would.
Why it matters
More examples mean more predictable behavior, but also more tokens and more places for a poisoned example to sneak in. Defenders should version and review example sets like any configuration, because they steer the model.
Hook
Multi-shot is teaching by a handful of worked examples; the model learns whatever the examples teach.

Word knowledge

How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.

In a sentence

The triage job uses multi-shot prompting by placing five labeled CVE tickets above the new report, then the model fills the severity field.

Why these words
  • multi-shot Latin multus, many, plus Old English sceot, a missile or a try sets the count, so the cue arrives with several samples rather than none or one
  • prompting Latin promptus, brought forth, from promere, plus English -ing supplies the head noun, the writing of cues that those samples belong to
Where it came from
Origin
English collocation on the multi-shot pattern, from Latin multus (many) and Old English sceot (a missile, a try), plus Latin promptus (brought forth, from promere) as a gerund
Entered the language
c. 2020
What changed
Multi had meant many since Latin, and English borrowed the prefix for compounds that hold more than one of a thing. Shot had meant a missile, then a try, then a photographic exposure, then a film take done without a cut. English hyphenated them for a firearm that fires more than once, then a camera burst. Vision papers around 2006 borrowed the shot-count for learning from a handful of labeled pictures. The GPT-3 paper of 2020 applied the same hyphen to cue-writing, and the three-word label named a cue that arrives with several worked samples.
How it is spelled
Pattern
hyphen joins a quantity prefix to a noun used as an adjective: multi-shot, not multishot or multi shot
Pattern
Latin -pt- stays a cluster, never simplified to -t-
Pattern
-ing turns a verb into a noun of activity
Breaks the pattern
multi-shot keeps its hyphen as a unit; prompting stays a free word
Breaks the pattern
shot is noun, verb, and past of shoot with no spelling change

Spelled like

  • multi-step
  • long-shot
  • attempt
  • exempt
Broken into chunks
  • multi
    • multiply
    • multitude
    • multimedia
  • shot
    • snapshot
    • gunshot
    • screenshot
  • pro
    • produce
    • promote
    • propose
  • mpt
    • attempt
    • exempt
    • contempt
  • ing
    • training
    • learning
    • testing
What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

Prompting techniques

Hyphenated shot compounds

  • long-shot
  • cheap-shot
  • jump-shot

Multi- prefix compounds

  • multi-step
  • multi-agent
  • multi-use

Where it sits in the deck

Phase 5: Interacting with Models: Prompting, APIs, and Retrieval

With a working model and clean data, learn the interaction layer — how users and systems communicate instructions and retrieve grounded answers.

Neighbours in this phase