SPRING 2024

10
THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK
Eric Dudas Fully Threaded Radio
Eric Dudas co-founded FCH Sourcing Network in 2006 and launched the industry
renowned Fully Threaded Radio podcast in 2010. With business partner and co-host
Brian Musker, FCH operates its widely used digital inventory marketing platform,
and provides data cleansing and formatting services for fastener distributors across
the industry. FCH also produces the monthly Fastener Distributor Index. Apart from
industry punditry, Eric ponders the deeper existential aspects of life driving a tractor
around his small farm in semi-rural northeast Ohio. eric@fastenersclearinghouse.com
UNTHREADED:
PROMPT ENGINEERING FOR DISTRIBUTORS
Recently, I spent the better part of a day paying close
attention to the AI for Distributors Summit presented by
MDM Distribution Intelligence. It was a virtual conference
offered online and free of charge.
The time was well spent.
It might sound like a snore-fest to some fastener
folks, but one of the highlights for me was the
conversation between Endries International CEO Michael
Knight along with MDM host Mike Hockett. They explored
some of the big picture issues surrounding AI during a
session entitled “Risks and Ethical Considerations of AI
Deployment”.
Admittedly, that’s not everyone’s keg of screws.
And to be fair, I took away the most practical
information from some of the more hands-on sessions.
For example, prompt engineering is an important concept
in the expanding AI lexicon, and I just recently began to
appreciate its significance.
Turns out that vaunted AI guru himself, Sam Altman
suggested young techies should learn English as their
first programming language. He says AI will write all the
code better than they ever could if they can correctly
explain what it needs to do. Mind blowing. Just have a
nice conversation with the computer and everything will
work out fine.
When I first heard that, I thought to myself, “Close
the pod bay door, HAL.”
Setting aside those trepidations, and with the idea
of developing my own chops in the new fine art of AI
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE
pseudo-coding, I upgraded to ChatGPT 4 and began the
conversation with AI that I’d been putting off for far too
long.
I mean, this stuff has been out since November of
2022. Ancient history, man. Come on already.
My first attempt at prompt engineering began with
building a simple graphic.
ME: “Imagine Colonel Sanders holding a giant fully
threaded cap screw in a blizzard next to a warehouse
rack filled with boxes of fasteners.”
ChatGPT: “The image depicting the scene you
described is shown below.” (Figure A)
I was impressed.
FIGURE A: “CHATGPT DRAWS A PREDOMINANTLY FASTENER-RELATED
IMAGE BASED ON A VERY SIMPLE PROMPT.”
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