Almost Timely News: Protecting Your AI Prompts  ## Metadata - Author: [[Christopher Penn]] - Full Title: Almost Timely News: Protecting Your AI Prompts - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #AI - #promptengineering - #intellectualproperty - #marketinganalytics - #workplacepolicy Author: Christopher Penn Source: YouTube Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctUIeuao1Rc&t=1s date created: 2025-08-23 00:00 --- # Title: Protecting Your AI Prompts (Almost Timely News) ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references-1) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis-prompt) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### References: - Penn, C. Almost Timely News: Protecting Your AI Prompts, YouTube video and newsletter transcript. - Andrej Karpathy quote on programming language as “English” (January 2023). ## 📝 Summary: Christopher Penn argues that AI prompts are functionally software and should be treated as valuable intellectual property. He urges creators and companies to assess prompts using a “time-money” rule: if a prompt saves time, saves money, or makes money, treat it as protected IP. He provides practical examples, discusses employment agreement implications, and advises clear policies for handling prompt ownership and sharing. The takeaway: prompts are code; treat them with care, caution, and business rigor. Direct quotes: - “Our prompts are code… our prompts are intellectual property that is valuable.” - “Would you give away your source code as a company?” Key moments: - Framing prompts as software and IP (start to ~33%). - The time-money rule and examples (33%–58%). - Employment agreement and ownership cautions (58%–80%). - Final guidance to set clear policies and avoid casual sharing (80%–92%). ## 📖 Main Content: Penn reframes prompts as executable instructions akin to code, not disposable text. With LLMs, natural language is a programming interface. He proposes a decision framework: if a prompt contributes to business value (time/money), protect it. He contrasts shareable personal prompts (e.g., wedding vows) with business-driving analytics prompts that feed client work. He highlights gray areas where prompts could be monetized indirectly. Finally, he stresses reviewing employment contracts for IP clauses and instituting corporate policies to govern prompt creation, ownership, and sharing. Personal reflections and connections: - This aligns with treating prompt suites like reproducible pipelines (akin to ETL scripts). For WordPress and open-source contexts, the differentiation between community-shared scaffolds and proprietary, revenue-generating prompts mirrors plugin freemium models. - The “natural language as programming” perspective suggests creating prompt repositories with version control, code review, and access controls—much like treating prompts as code artifacts. ### 🗒️ Notes - Prompts are code - Natural language instructions produce repeatable outputs with LLMs (0%–25%). - Analogy: Asking for someone’s prompt is like asking for their proprietary source code (8%–17%). - The “time-money” rule (33%–50%) - Protect prompts that save time, save money, or make money. - Example (do not share): Google Analytics data comparison + strategy-generation prompt integrated with API and R to scale across clients (33%–50%). - Example (okay to share): Personal wedding vows prompt—no business value (50%–58%). - Gray zone prompts (50%–66%) - Finance strategy prompts: may not benefit him directly but could be sold or used with financial clients—lean toward not sharing. - Employment agreements and IP (58%–80%) - Anything created at work is often employer-owned. - Some agreements claim IP even off-hours on personal equipment; seek legal counsel and negotiate fair carve-outs. - Example: Pre-existing personal projects (podcast/blog) explicitly excluded via negotiation. - Organizational policy guidance (80%–92%) - Create clear policies on prompt handling, classification, and sharing. - Educate teams that prompts are software and likely company IP. - Avoid casually “open sourcing” business-critical prompts without value assessment. - Related updates and resources (92%–100%) - AI vendor evaluation process, GA4 transition urgency, jobs list, and industry news. ## 📖 References: - Video and transcript: Almost Timely News: Protecting Your AI Prompts — Christopher Penn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctUIeuao1Rc&t=1s - Andrej Karpathy’s statement on natural language as the hottest programming language (Jan 2023). ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original idea: Prompts are not just language; they are software instructions producing repeatable results. Paraphrase: Though prompts look like plain text, they function as executable programs for LLMs, consistently guiding outputs much like traditional code does for computers. 2) Original idea: Use the time-money rule to decide whether to share a prompt. Paraphrase: Evaluate each prompt by whether it delivers operational or financial value. If it reduces effort, lowers costs, or generates revenue, treat it as proprietary and keep it confidential. ## 📰 Newsletter: This week in the web dev world: we’re sharpening our skills and hardening our security. If you’re learning WordPress and modern web development, focus on sustainable workflows—PHP 8.x readiness, modern JS tooling, and a11y-first CSS patterns. Recent updates worth a look: the latest Gutenberg releases bring improved site editor performance, and several theme authors shipped block-first patterns for faster builds. Community shoutouts to first-time contributors in the WordPress Core and Documentation teams—your PRs are paving smoother paths for the next wave of makers. New plugins: a lightweight performance helper that auto-inlines critical CSS, and an AI-assisted content block that respects your privacy budget. Want to level up? Revisit secure prompt handling for AI-assisted dev tools; treat prompts like code, store them in private repos, and document usage as you would any architectural decision. Keep shipping, keep sharing, and keep it open—responsibly. ## ✅ Action Items: Prompt for aligning articles with your role and goals “You are a Developer Advocate at GoDaddy specializing in open source and WordPress, an educator and instructional designer, and an aspiring OSPO director. Analyze the provided article and produce: - Alignment Summary: Explain how the article advances open-source advocacy, contributor onboarding, and educational goals within the WordPress ecosystem. - Community Impact: Identify opportunities to engage, mentor, and retain contributors (e.g., docs improvements, first-issue labeling, contributor workshops). - Governance & OSPO Relevance: Map insights to OSPO priorities (IP policy, licensing, compliance, security, transparency, and inclusive governance). - Sustainability: Propose funding, sponsorship, and recognition mechanisms that support long-term contributor health (e.g., DEI funds, grants, maintainership pathways). - Educational Assets: Outline workshops, curricula, tutorials, and assessments (PHP/JS/HTML/CSS/Git/GitHub) to teach the article’s concepts with hands-on labs. - Policy & Compliance: Recommend template policies (e.g., prompt IP handling, contributor license agreements, Responsible AI guidance), and how they apply to WordPress orgs and hosts. - Developer Experience: Suggest tooling (linters, pre-commit hooks, secrets scanning, prompt vaults), documentation standards, and contributor UX improvements. - Transparency & Inclusivity: Provide steps to ensure open decision logs, public roadmaps, and inclusive language/accessibility in all materials. Deliver a concise brief and a detailed implementation - Summary: In this video, I talk about how important it is to protect your AI prompts. Many people think of prompts as just natural language, but in reality, they are code that can save time, money, and even make money. Just like how you wouldn't give away your source code or proprietary techniques, you shouldn't share your prompts unless you're sure it won't harm your business or intellectual property. Make sure to consider your employment agreement as well because some companies may have ownership over anything you create while employed by them. Treat your prompts with care and caution, and be mindful of their value. Subscribe to my weekly #email newsletter: http://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more #marketing and #analytics videos! https://www.youtube.com/user/christopherspenn Need help with your company's #data and #analytics? Let me know: https://www.trustinsights.ai Join my free private Slack group, Analytics for #Marketers: https://www.trustinsights.ai/analyticsfo... - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctUIeuao1Rc&t=1s&ab_channel=ChristopherPenn this is the almost timely newsletter forthe week of April 16 2023 contentauthenticity statement 100 of thisnewsletter was written by me the humanwith no contribution from AI if thereever is a contribution generated by AIit will be prominently disclosed what'son my mind this week protecting your AIprompts during a meeting this past weekI demonstrated some of the uh promptengineering techniques I used to getgood results out of generative AIsystems like Chachi BT and the GPT family of models I've been doing promptengineering now for a while Yearsstarting really with the the gpt2 modelthat was released in 2020Lots practice means you eventually getdecent at it and certainly had enoughtime during the pandemic to do thatdidn't wethe folks I was showing uh wereimpressed by what the prompts didespecially since their own prompts weregenerating lackluster resultsat the end of the meeting they asked avery important questionhey if you don't mind could you send me that promptnow in this particular context thisperson the S this is a trusted friendand Associates of course I said yes hereyou go right but that's an importantquestion because it underscores the waypeople think about large language modelprompts and how they don't think aboutthem because they look like naturallanguage like this newsletter like likethe interoffice memo sent around lastweek asking people again not tomicrowave fish in the common roommicrowave like the social media posts we scroll by every day on Instagram stuffwe assume that AI prompts are justlanguage just words rightthey're not just wordsimagine at the end of a meeting with acoder a developer you ask the developerhey could you uh could you send me thesource code to the product You'reBuilding what would that developers bewhat would that developer's response beright what should that developer'sresponse becan you imagine asking someone to just hey send along your proprietary code oryour secret sauce recipe or yourhard-earned techniques especially forfreethe response should professionally be apolite but firm no and perhaps dependingon the circumstances and offer to allowthe person to purchase that valuableintellectual propertyhere's a question for you what isprogramming what is code is it Arcaneyou know constructs like r or python orC that look like you know crazy symbols and and you know letters and things thatkind of look like words but not reallyyou know yeah that's that's computercode what does it do well at the mostabstract letter computer code givesinstructions to a computer to follow toachieve a repeatable reliable resultnow what about thisyou are a marketing analyst you know SQLR set theory tidyverse libraries andmethods you know marketing analyticsGoogle analytics for bigqueryattribution modeling your first task is to write code to import a CSV file usingtoday's date in the name prepare thevariable names to be compliant with bestpractices naming standards ensure therows of data are unique and then subsetthe data this into the source dateSource medium and campaign dimensionsfor sessions and conversionsis that just words is that just languageis that just a memo is it email nothat is functionally a computer programthat is softwarethat prompt is softwareAndre carpathy had a great quote onTwitter back in January he said thehottest programming language in 2023 isEnglish this is a completely true Statewell it's mostly true the Haas programlanguage in 2020 is natural languagebecause you can get great results out ofthese models in French or Danish orwhatever it's not just Englishbut this is a completely true statementthanks to large language models like theGPT family using plain language we givecomputers instructions to generate reliable repeatable results that's coderight that is softwarewould you give away your source code asa company would you give away thedetailed Excel macros you've writtendoes your employer even permit you to doso to share anything made as a workproduct chances are the answer is no andin many cases whether or not there areexplicit rules against sharing you knowTrade Secrets you probably shouldn'tshare them what we need to realize and recognize isthat our prompts are code our promptsare software our props are intellectualproperty that is valuable it's not apress release or a blog post or you knowa memo it's computer code it's just codethat non-formally trained programmerscan write anyone who can write Englishwell and follow a specific recipe canwrite code nowso how do we decide what we should andshould not share well here's the easy test that I use to apply to any promptwill this prompt in questions save timesave money or make money within thecontext of our businessfor example I was writing the other daya prompt that ingests two sets of Googleanalytics data for traffic andconversions compares the two and thenwrites a marketing strategy to helpimprove our digital marketing thisprompt has been incorporated into some Rcode that I wrote that talks to openai's GPT turbo API so they can run over and over again in an automated wayagainst a roster of clients right thenet result will be a great marketinganalysis first draft that I canincorporate into the guidance that wegive to our clients at trust insights amI about to share that promptabsolutely notthis is going to be part of the secretsauce of what we do as a company ThePrompt itself is almost two pages longbecause of the special conditions thatcontrol it and make it do exactly what Iwanted to do it's a prompt that will save our clients money and make buycompany money so it triggers two of theconditions in the time and money rulenow I wrote a prompt the other day for afriend to take a first crack at somewedding vows it was detailed andthorough and the results it generatedliterally brought my friend to tearswould I share that prompt yes it's notmaterial to what I do it's not materialto what trust insights does it's notgoing to save me any time or money it'snot going to make me any money right Ihave no intention of getting into the wedding planning business so no money tobe made there and thus that's a prompt Iwould feel very comfortable sharingright it clears all three rules of thethe time and money thing right no it'snot gonna save time it's not gonna savemoney and for me and my business it'snot going to make any moneynow if your wedding planner would itwould but you know what generallyspeaking we don't have any weddingplanners on our client roster if you area wedding planner and you're interestedum hit me upumhere's a gray Zone example I was talking to a friend who works in finance and shewas saying her company creates uhinvestment strategies for high net worthindividuals so I drafted a prompt thatcreates such an investment strategy andthen a prompt refinement process thatdrills down to the specifics of theprocess to create a custom investmentguide for these kinds of folks usinginvestment datait was very detailed went into you knowthe intricacies of Real EstateInvestment Trust something I knownothing aboutum but she checked it over and said wowthat's better than what our company isproducing um because again good prompt construction means good results nowwould I share this promptwell it doesn't save me any time ormoney right I am not a high net worthindividual so if something doesn't helpme it's not going to make me money uhpersonally it's not going to make trustinsights money directly because trustinsights is not a financial servicescompanybut would we ever work with financialservices institutions sure in fact wehave a Regional Bank as a client rightnow would they be interested in thisprompt in this process maybe probablyso even though it's not a direct moneymaker I could see it being valuableenough that someone else would bewilling to pay money for it so sharingthat promptprobably going to fall on the no side ofthingsthis is not a huge stretch for many ofus right this is not an intellectualleap we give away small stuff smallintellectual property all the time wegive away blog posts or an issue of thisnewsletter like what you're enjoyingright now but we charge for books right we gate white papers and andlonger form content and people expectthis they expect to fill out a form togive something in exchange they expectto buy a book they expect to buy ticketsto an event where we're speaking onstage right we charge for speeches fromthe stage we charge for Consulting andprivate Council that's uniquely fittedto a customer's needsand sofor prompts which are software and ifyou would charge for custom coding you should be thinking about the value ofyour prompts now here's one lastconsideration to take into accountit's a big one your employment agreementdepending on the company you work forcheck it over carefully to see whatconditions you agreed to when youaccepted an offer of employmentparticularly around intellectualproperty some companies say reasonablyso that anything you create at work isowned by them right because you're atwork to work which means that theprompts you wrote at work are no longeryour property they're no longer yours to give away or share any more than yourcomputer code that you wrote at work ora slide deck you made it work is yoursto give away or sharenow there are some companiesI've worked for some of these in thepast and I've had my lawyer yell at thembefore I agreed to work there but noteveryone has that opportunity but somecompanies are so restrictive that theywork Clauses into their employmentagreements that say anything you createwhether you're not at work whether youknow you're doing it at home on your ownequipmentwhile you are employed by this company anything you create is owned by themeven if you do it on your own time rightand because you signed the employeeagreement as a condition of employmentyou are legally Bound by ityou need to check that out take a lookat what you signedfor job Seekers inspect employmentagreements carefully and request changesin it that are fair and Equitable rightit is more than reasonable to say thatanything created by you at work by request of your employer as part of theduties you are paid for in your jobdescription is owned by your employerthat is totally reasonable right buttalk to an attorney and a human one notnot chat GPT about what protections youshould ask for to keep things likeprompts you right outside of work asyour own intellectual propertyespecially if they save you time saveyou money or make you money I didsomething similar when I started workingat the last few companies I specifiedthings like you know for examplemarketing over coffee or my blog companydoesn't own those companies cannot lay claim to those and stuff and those wereum those negotiations took a littlewhile but we did eventually get therebutit would have been a bigger mistake tonot have those negotiations at allthe key takeaway here is that promptsare not just casual pieces of text tofling around I had no that looks like anemail right so as long as a decent emailbut they're not treat them with careconsideration and caution especially ifthey save time save money or make money if you're an employer you need to havevery clear policies in place if youdon't already about how people shouldtreat company intellectual propertybecause the average person isn't goingto think of a prompt as code but it is100 code that you probably own you areof course welcome to give away whateveryou want you know it's your life it'syour businessbut employer or employee I would advisecaution before simply flinging propsinto the wind just the same way I would advise caution before open sourcing apiece of software that your businesswrote you might give away somethingvaluable enough that other people wouldpay you money for itso what else is happening in the newsthis week in case you missed it um had abig week of content top SEO metrics uhmisinformation risks with chat GPTevaluating AI Solutions if I had to pickone for you to check out the piece onhow to evaluate AI Solutions is usefulfor dealing with the absolute glut ofnew AI vendors it's a five-part process if you're familiar with the trustinsights five piece it's basically thatin the context of evaluating vendorsbecause there are crazy numbers of newAI vendors popping up literally everydayuh for classes again make sure thekeynote that I did in London just a fewweeks ago now is a little bit out ofdate in certain parts but um got anupdated version I'll be doing very soonbut the most of the keynote is stillgood you can check that in the freeclasses section and there are 80 oh 77days left until Google analytics 4 is the law of the land and you cannot longuser um cannot use Universal analyticsanymore so if you have not taken theGoogle analytics 4 course yes it costsmoney but if you're not taking it now isthe time to do that before uh beforeit's your your old Universe on like juststops workinguh in jobs this week got a niceselection we have data analysts atSoutheast Brands digital analyticstechnical expert at ad data director ofgrowth at McGraw-Hill senior analyst ofmartech engineering at blast analytics senior campaign content managementgoldcast senior consultant at blastanalytics senior data engineer at dcmngmbh and Senior data scientist atFoursquare so go check those joblistings out also a reminder check outthe free course on improving yourLinkedIn profile that's over at thetrust insights Academy there's a link inthe newsletter totally free uh you dohave to register for the course but it'stotally freeother things other stuffwe have uh stats about Tick Tock marketers YouTube adding a reminderbutton for upcoming live streams whichis nice and approaches to creatingthought leadership ranking higher withschema markups we have uh GoDaddyinducing a generative AI promptedlibrary for small businesses very cleveragain you're giving them software morefree software to work with which istotally on brand for them data analyticsand Taxation uh we have zero party datamaximizing text campaign results somenew stuff from IBM and some interesting articles uh the Uber CEO becoming anUber driver for 100 rides to see whatdrivers go through he was reallysurprised that some passengers are justjerks really should not have beensurprised by that banks are not keepingup with interest rate hikes in the U.Swhich is kind of hosing people who savemoney and some uh some Twitter tips inthis week's save Warrior none newsletterwhich is something I do on the side forfun upcoming events this week I'm headedout to San Francisco for the sapanalytica B2B influencer Summit so if you are in the San Francisco area gocheck that out B2B ignite Chicago nextmonth along with isbm we have contentmarketing world next month uh I knowisbm September and then uh market acrossB2B form here in Boston in October solots of good events coming up nosurprise a lot of it's going to befocused at least what I'm talking abouton all things AI that is the news forthis week thank you for tuning in thankyou for being here appreciate yourattention uh given all the wonderful AI generated things that you can do insteadand I will talk to you soon take careif you like this video go ahead and hitthat subscribe button, Almost Timely News: Protecting Your AI Prompts, Christopher Penn, 01gy7kjxsggh6yvnz5cgphq9h2.