Module 6 · Level I · Foundations

Your first conversations with AI

Getting started with an AI assistant safely: what to ask, how to follow up, and how to tell a good answer from a confident one.

6 lessons · about 1 hour

The module in 46 secondsCaptions on · sound optional

What’s inside

  1. 01
    Choosing an assistant to start with

    The main AI assistants do the same basic job, so pick the one that fits the life you already have, then get going. · 9 min

  2. 02
    Your first prompts

    How to ask an AI assistant for something clearly, using plain words, a little context and a picture of what good looks like. · 9 min

  3. 03
    Following up and refining

    An AI chat is a conversation, not a vending machine: how to steer a first answer towards the one you actually want. · 9 min

  4. 04
    Asking it to explain itself

    How to get an assistant to show its reasoning, its assumptions and its uncertainty, and why you still shouldn't take its word for it. · 10 min

  5. 05
    A good answer or a confident one?

    Fluent, well-formatted and sure of itself is not the same as right: a simple way to judge an AI answer before you rely on it. · 10 min

  6. 06
    What not to type, and a first routine

    The personal and work information to keep out of AI chats, how to get help without it, and a gentle routine for your first week. · 10 min

Where this sits on your path depends on your assessment. Some people skip this module outright; others start here. The free placement assessment decides, and the first lesson of every module is free to read. Find your level →

Also at Level I

1What AI actually is
AI, machine learning, deep learning and generative AI, untangled: what each term means, what it doesn't, and why the hype and the fear both miss.2A short history of AI
From Turing and the 1956 Dartmouth workshop through two AI winters, deep learning and the transformer to ChatGPT and agents: how we got here, and what it predicts.3How machines learn
Data, training and prediction; supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning, explained with everyday examples and no maths.4Types and styles of AI
Narrow and general, predictive and generative, rules and learning: the different styles of AI and where you already meet each one.