CONCEPT
The Prompt as Document Format
The argument that the apparently transparent text field of AI interfaces is a document format in Gitelman's sense — privileging certain cognitive postures, rewarding certain kinds of expression, and marginalizing others.
The prompt appears to be a transparent instruction — a user telling a machine what to produce. Its interface presents the interaction as conversational, natural, free-form. The design encourages this perception: blinking cursor, empty field, no visible structure governing what can be entered. The appearance is misleading. Like all document formats, the prompt shapes what can be expressed through it — not by prohibiting certain inputs but by privileging declarative specification, rewarding users who can state what they want before the production process begins, and constructing a particular model of the user as a creative agent who evaluates results against a predetermined standard. This is one model of creative agency. It is not the only model, and the prompt format's implicit privileging of this model has consequences for what kinds of work the medium can produce.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The painter who works without a plan, the musician who improvises, the writer who