What is AI?

Introduction

The way AI is portrayed has changed significantly over time and still varies greatly depending on who you ask. Some view AI through the lens of science fiction, imagining a "machine uprising" as seen in the Terminator movies. Others see it as a practical field of research and technological development.

In this course, we’ll focus on a more straightforward and accessible view of AI. We won’t dive into the history of AI or the technical intricacies. Instead, the goal is to provide you with the practical knowledge needed to use the AI tools that are becoming increasingly common. These tools can be a great asset both during your studies and in your professional life.

For the purposes of this course, we define AI as software or programs capable of performing tasks typically done by humans, such as understanding text, recognizing images, making decisions, and more. However, not every program that can perform these tasks is considered AI.

A traditional program follows a set of fixed rules and can only change or improve when it is updated or reprogrammed. In contrast, AI systems can learn and adapt based on new information, enabling them to handle more complex and unpredictable tasks. A common misconception is misidentifying what part of a program is driven by AI.

Take Netflix, for instance. The streaming platform itself operates on standard, rule-based programming. The AI component lies in the recommendation engine. This AI analyzes your behavior (such as the types of shows you watch, how often, how much you like them, specific themes, actors, etc.) and suggests new content based on that data. YouTube operates in a similar way.

For Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, the AI comes into play when it transforms a voice command into text and processes natural language to interpret the intent behind the words (using NLP, or Natural Language Processing). This allows Siri to understand and respond to user requests in a natural, human-like manner.

And then came 2022…

At the end of 2022, a new online service made headlines: ChatGPT. While similar services existed before, none garnered as much attention as ChatGPT did upon its release. Its concept is simple: ask it anything, and it will provide a clear and coherent answer almost instantly.

ChatGPT is an example of a generative AI tool (which we’ll discuss further in the next section). Essentially, it’s a chatbot that understands questions and provides relevant responses. Most of the interactions with ChatGPT are what we call "text-to-text," meaning you input text and receive a text-based reply. The tool is capable of much more, but we’ll explore those capabilities in a later section.

As of today, generative AI tools have become widely adopted, with ChatGPT alone boasting over 180 million unique monthly users.

Hands-On Practice

To truly grasp how these tools work, let’s dive into a hands-on exercise. Head over to chatgpt.com and create an account (if you don’t have one already). In the chat window, type any query or request you'd like, and you’ll receive a response shortly after. Try a few different prompts to see how the AI responds.

Once you’ve finished, copy the conversation and save it as a document. Then, export the document as a PDF and upload it in the activity below. After completing this step, you’ll be ready to move on to the next chapter!