Being

Podcast 2 — In conversation

Speaker A: I was editing a sci-fi script and I had to write a character described as an ancient being. It felt very natural.

Speaker B: It does, does it not? Being works perfectly for any entity with presence and awareness — human, alien, spiritual, supernatural. It does not commit you to specifics.

Speaker A: That is exactly why I used it. A creature sounds biological. An entity sounds corporate. A being is somehow both more and less defined.

Speaker B: Good instinct. Being carries a sense of inner life — of something that exists meaningfully, not just physically. A rock is not a being. A dog is.

Speaker A: And "a human being" — why do we say that instead of just a human?

Speaker B: It emphasises the full condition of humanity — not just the biological fact but the existential reality. A human being has consciousness, feeling, moral weight. You see it often in ethical or empathetic contexts: treat every person as a human being.

Speaker A: What about for the time being? That feels completely different.

Speaker B: Completely different register — idiomatic, casual, very common. For the time being means for now, until things change. "We will keep the old system for the time being." It is a useful phrase for expressing temporary arrangements.

Speaker A: Any mistakes to avoid?

Speaker B: Overusing it philosophically when you mean simply a person or a creature. If you say "every being in the office" you sound very unusual. Say every person or everyone. Reserve being for contexts where existence or non-human entities are genuinely in play.

Podcast 3 — Prompt engineering

Instructor: Today we look at being in developer prompts. It is a flexible word — sometimes it names an entity type, sometimes it expresses an ongoing state, sometimes it frames system roles. Let me show you each angle.

Student: So it functions differently depending on where in the prompt it sits?

Instructor: Exactly. Entity naming, state description, role framing. Start with entity design.

Instructor: PROMPT: Design a PostgreSQL schema for a game world. The central concept is a being — any entity with consciousness and agency: humans, elves, spirits, AI constructs. Include a beings table with columns for id, being_type, name, consciousness_level, faction_id, and created_at. Use a beings_attributes JSONB column for extensible traits.

Instructor: Naming the central table beings instead of characters or entities shapes the whole schema philosophy. The AI generates a consciousness_level column and a JSONB attributes field because being implies variable inner complexity — not a fixed character sheet.

Student: State description angle?

Instructor: PROMPT: Build a React status dashboard for a distributed microservices system. Each service is treated as a being with a lifecycle: not_yet_born, being_initialised, active, being_drained, and terminated. Display each state with a colour-coded badge. Include a timeline view of state transitions.

Instructor: Being_initialised and being_drained are state names that communicate process — something currently happening, not just a fixed label. The AI generates correctly named enum values and a timeline component that shows active transitions, not just snapshots.

Student: Role framing?

Instructor: PROMPT: Write a system prompt for a conversational AI assistant being deployed in a customer support context. The assistant should introduce itself as a helpful being — knowledgeable, patient, and never dismissive. Define response guidelines: acknowledge the user first, ask one clarifying question before answering, and always end with a next-step suggestion.

Instructor: A helpful being in a system prompt sets a tone that goes beyond a role description. The AI writes guidelines that emphasise emotional intelligence — acknowledge first, never dismissive — because being implies inner life and relational awareness, not just function.

Student: HR or business system?

Instructor: PROMPT: Build a Node.js HR onboarding API. The system must track each new employee as a being-in-progress through stages: invitation_sent, account_being_created, documents_uploaded, training_in_progress, and fully_onboarded. Include webhook triggers on each state change and a PostgreSQL audit log.

Instructor: Account_being_created and training_in_progress are active, continuous state names. The AI generates async-aware logic — webhooks fire during transitions, not just on completion. The word being builds process continuity into the state machine.

Student: Full app brief?

Instructor: PROMPT: Generate a project brief for a mindfulness app where the core metaphor is being present. Features: guided breathing sessions, a presence timer, a daily being journal for reflective writing, and a streak tracker for consecutive days of practice. Stack: React Native, Node.js, PostgreSQL. Include a calm, minimal UI brief.

Instructor: Being present as the core metaphor causes the AI to propose a daily being journal — a naming choice that shapes the whole UX language of the app. Every feature name, copy string, and colour choice follows from that metaphor because the brief established it at the concept level.

Student: I see — being is both a noun and an ongoing process, and that duality makes it precise in very different contexts.

Instructor: Exactly. When your prompt uses being carefully — as entity, as state, as metaphor — the AI inherits that precision and builds it into every layer of its output.