AI Vs The Novice

AI vs The Novice

Feeling Overwhelmed by AI - How to take back control

Truth be told, I consider myself a bit of an AI enthusiast. I'd say that I’ve been talking about AI since before it was cool…(ironically, at the time of writing it has now become somewhat uncool again.)

Regardless, even I have to admit to a certain feeling of overwhelmedness when it comes to AI. Just the sheer amount of breaking news, ‘top 10 tips you must be doing’, ‘brand new AI tools’ and models out there at the moment can feel daunting to keep up with. 

For those that haven’t been keeping up to speed or perhaps even started to look at AI in any great detail, I can completely understand why you might want to don your tin-foil hat and make for the nearest survival bunker. 

So if you feel like you are not started on your AI journey and just the thought of getting started feels you with dread, this article is for you. 

Firstly, you are not too late. Not by a long shot. Anyone who tells you otherwise is ‘giving nonsense’. 

Now for your first question, “Where To Start?”

Truth is, you can start anywhere, ok that’s not particularly helpful…so try out one of the major players like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, Meta AI, Anthropic’s Claude and/or xAI’s Grok - whilst some of the more tech minded of us can now create their own local and bespoke AI systems, for privacy, security and usability reasons, it’s a good idea to start off trying one of the established models. 

Second question, “Doesn’t it cost me money to use AI?”

Now what you don’t usually hear is that ALL of these models have their own free models that you can play around with. They are incredibly powerful and more than suitable to get you started. Don’t sign up to any expensive ‘prompt engineering 101 courses’ or sign up to multiple £20 per month subscriptions just yet. Play around in these sand-pit environments whilst you get an idea of how they work. 

Next question, “So I’ve chosen my AI, now what do I do?”

One of the things I remember when I first tried an AI model was staring at this empty box on the screen that said ‘ask me anything’...I immediately felt somewhat overwhelmed…a sort of paralysis from the enormous amount of options I had at my fingertips. Initially, I couldn’t choose anything. I eventually landed on ‘write me a song about Woolwich’, I recall being pretty impressed with the detailed level of information the AI was able to provide on my home-town and how many things actually rhyme with Woolwich!

So to start, keep it simple, you can ask simple questions like:

• Plan my weekend in Budapest for me?

• Here are 5 ingredients from my fridge (add items), give me two quick dinner ideas

• Help me draft a review for a local business I used

• Explain pythagoras theorem to me like I’m a child

As you start using the models, you start to see what they are good at and where they can be lacking. 

Some important tips to get you started from our AI Novice Playbook:

• Pick an AI model and bookmark it - don’t try to keep up with every model, pick one and put it on your browser’s bookmark bar or download the mobile app.

• Take an ‘initial draft’ rule - The next time you need to write an email, an outline, a presentation slide, or an agenda, write two rough sentences into the prompt box and ask the model for a rough first draft. You will edit it, rewrite it, and give it your human touch but experiment to see what it can do.

• Speak naturally, not in code - Tell the tool who you are, what you need, who the audience is, and what tone you want (e.g., "Act as an experienced copywriter. Review this draft paragraph and make it punchier and less formal").

• Keep a Human-In-The-Loop - AI models are not always factually accurate and can even make things up. Check the sources if in doubt and don’t take what AI says as the absolute truth. 

• Don’t share any private and confidential information - Free to use models will almost certainly use the information you share for training purposes. Think - ‘would I want this read out aloud in the street’ - before sharing any information. 

Lastly, some words of encouragement. If you’re not confident with AI, but you want to be…I would get you to ask yourself these questions?

“What am I good at?” and “How did I get good at it?”

When I think of anything I’m particularly good at (karate, djing, dry wit and sarcasm), it’s invariably because I have spent the time practicing, repeating, doing IT. I have chopped so many karate boards, spun so many tunes and cracked so many dad jokes over the years that I am now in a position where this karate kicking, djing, slapsticking dad is unstoppable (just kidding of course). But you get the idea, the only way to get better is to get started, so please just start. 

Even more lastly, I would say AI is here and it’s not going away. You have a choice, to be impacted or to start impacting. You can wait for AI passively, sweating at each new ‘AI apocalypse’ headline or system upgrade your company roll-out. Or you can turn the tables (once a dj…)

If you can get your AI hands dirty so to speak, even for just ten minutes a week you will see the dynamic flip. You are not waiting for AI to happen to you, you are happening to it. You are now the one impacting. 

So I hope this brief article has given you some encouragement, if you want to know more, do contact info@theaicurriculum.net for more information.