Open for a primer on AI, ChatGPT and more
It’s an exciting time at Coursera: We are proud to be launching DeepLearning.AI’s AI For Good Specialization, which contextualizes how artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to address real-world problems, like public health crises and climate change. This launch perfectly aligns with our topic today—the last of our high-income skills series—AI skills.
Regardless of your career path, you’re increasingly likely to encounter some form of AI at work. According to a study by Lightcast, the number of job listings seeking AI skills is high and climbing across almost every field.
AI is often used to drive automation and perform tasks requiring minimal human input, like information sorting. For more complex tasks, we can teach computers to imitate human learning processes using algorithms and statistical models. This practice is called machine learning.
But here’s the best news: You don’t need to know all the ins and outs of algorithms in order to benefit from AI and contribute to the conversations around it. Sometimes, understanding AI frameworks is enough. (See: AI For Good.)
Not all AI skills require technical programming knowledge.
User-friendly tools, such as ChatGPT and DALL-E 2, make it easier for anyone to incorporate AI into their regular workflow. Whether or not you’re in a technical field, here are some AI skills you may want to use at work:
- AI ethics refers to safeguarding against the negative consequences of AI technology. This skill lives at the intersection of technology and sociocultural systems, for example thinking about how unconscious bias may show up in emerging AI technologies.
- AI strategy has to do with incorporating AI tools into your workflow. Using AI strategically requires you to understand both its opportunities and its limitations as you use new technologies to further your business goals.
- Prompt engineering is the ability to communicate with AI tools in order to return your desired outputs. You don’t always need to know a programming language for prompt engineering; for example, you can use natural language to prompt ChatGPT.
Where to begin
To explore real-world applications of AI, start with DeepLearning.AI’s newest Specialization, AI For Good. Here, you’ll use AI frameworks as you learn how AI is used to address world problems.
For a technical crash course, look into DeepLearning.AI’s AI For Everyone. This 10-hour course was designed with non-technical professionals in mind, so it’s an approachable way to learn about different fields or branches of AI, like machine learning and deep learning, and how they may intersect with the workplace and society. Plus it’s taught by Andrew Ng, one of the world’s leading AI experts and a co-founder of Coursera.
To grow your ChatGPT skills, check out Vanderbilt University’s Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT course. In this course, you’ll learn how to write effective queries for ChatGPT to increase your productivity in your daily life, at work, or anywhere. Or, if you want to better understand what ChatGPT is, try Google Cloud’s one-hour course, Introduction to Generative AI.
If you already have some AI skills, dig deeper with IBM’s Machine Learning Professional Certificate or DeepLearning.AI’s Natural Language Processing Specialization. Both are intermediate-level courses, so you’ll want to start with some machine learning and Python knowledge.
With that, our high-income skills series comes to a close. We’re going to take next week off, so we’ll see you in two weeks with another special issue. See you then!
