Create with AI

How do you use artificial intelligence to build useful or interesting things? This course marries theory to practice. In each session we will (a) cover one theoretical aspect of artificial intelligence, and (b) put AI to practical use building projects we’ll be able to keep using long after the course ends.

No prior knowledge needed — just a laptop and enthusiasm for building. In our experience, the main obstacle when creating with AI is your own imagination.

Last year we built, for example, a site for explaining advanced study concepts (such as linear regression) and the Discover Buddy app (a site for uploading and sharing content and schedules for our session). But imagination knows no limits — build whatever you like, for instance:

– A story told as an illustrated text adventure,
– A website for a student theatre society and a ticketing system for its plays,
– A personal art portfolio, or
– An evaluation tool for choosing universities and degree programmes.

Preliminary schedule:

– Lesson 1: Foundations of AI and language models. (How do words become vectors?) + How to start thinking about the right project?
– Lesson 2: How can AI know what I’m asking and what I want from it? (What is a context window?) + Writing a project specification.
– Lesson 3: Why does AI hallucinate, and how can you learn with it anyway? + Building a first cut of the project in AI tools.
– Lesson 4: Advanced considerations in building more widely used applications (security, etc.) + Producing the first presentable version.
– Lesson 5: Practical ethics of using artificial intelligence (AI Safety vs. AI Ethics, environmental considerations, …) + Improving the first version based on feedback.
– Lesson 6: What else can AI be good for? + Preparing the final project presentations.