'Just try it' is not very useful AI advice
Most AI content is written by people already deep in it, for people already deep in it. Meeting people where they actually are is harder - and more important.
Turns out "just try it" is not very useful advice.
The challenge I've noticed is that most of the content out there about AI is written by people who are already deep in it, for other people who are already deep in it. It's often interesting, but it doesn't meet people where they actually are - which, based on some recent experiences at work, is somewhere between vaguely curious and quietly terrified.
Bringing along people who aren't ready is a surprisingly hard gap to bridge. I have completely forgotten what it feels like not to know what I know now, and tend to recommend things that feel accessible to me but land as wildly overwhelming to someone who hasn't started yet.
I'm making an effort to change that. A recommendation: the Substack "Faster Than AI", which bridges that gap - exploring the ups and downs of self-experimentation in a really human, approachable way.
A starter kit, for the curious:
Faster Than AI - fasterthanai.substack.com
Elements of AI (free, University of Helsinki - the one I'd start with) - elementsofai.com
AI for Everyone by Andrew Ng (non-technical, free to audit) - coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone
Learn Prompting - learnprompting.org
Prompt Engineering Guide - promptingguide.ai
(Originally shared on LinkedIn.)