AI 101 · Start anywhere
Understand AI. Try something useful.
Seven short lessons for people who want a useful foundation, not a technical lecture. Each lesson ends with something you can try.
- 59 min in total
- 7 lessons
- Beginner
A small course with a clear finish.
No account required. Tick a lesson when you have done it; your ticks stay in this browser. Read in order or choose the gap that matters to you.
- 01
AI helps. You decide.
Start with the one habit that keeps every later AI decision safe: you can hand off the work, but you cannot hand off being responsible for it.
5 min → - 02
What AI is, and what it is not
Tell apart the model, the product built around it, plain search, rule-based automation and ordinary software, so you can reach for the simplest thing that will actually work.
8 min → - 03
Find a task worth using AI for
Weigh a possible task by how often it repeats, how fuzzy it is, what a mistake would cost, how easily you could undo it, and whether a capable person could actually check the result.
8 min → - 04
Brief AI like a capable colleague
Give the goal, the context that matters, the constraints, an example and what a good result looks like, instead of hunting for the perfect magic wording.
10 min → - 05
Know what not to share
Sort your information before it goes near an AI product, and send the least you can while still getting a useful result.
8 min → - 06
Check before you trust
Match your checking to the stakes: look at the sources, redo the important numbers, test the assumptions, and hunt for what was quietly left out.
10 min → - 07
Choose the right kind of AI
Match the capability and the effort to the task, rather than assuming the newest or the deepest option is automatically the right one.
10 min →