Beginners Guide to Gen AI in 2024

It’s 2024 and you’re hearing many stories about AI, and you’ve been hit with FOMO, of not being able to learn, you’re feeling overwhelmed and clueless about what to start and where to begin your learning journey. This read will give you enough knowledge on, where to start and how you would keep up with the ever-changing AI space. This Blog shall also provide insight on whom to read and what are the legit sources on the internet that you can trust, to keep up on your learning journey. Bonus: for those who reach towards the very end of this small article I have attached the link to a free roadmap with a lot of free materials.

1. What's your end Goal - A Generalist or a specialist?

So the 21st century has given us many new job roles, but have you heard of a specialist and a generalist? Yes, as the word suggests there is a clear distinction between a specialist and a generalist, but you might now be thinking, as a generalist in a particular space, what is the job role and is it even something that matters at the end of the day? To all you doubtful people, yes such a job role exists and, even Nasa has hired an AI generalist (Link to the article). Most of the companies are planning to hire someone in the job role and it is very well paid too. So as said, it is important to set whether you want to learn to be a specialist or generalist or just out of curiosity

2. Prompt engineering- it all starts here.

Though AI has threatened a lot of jobs from graphic designers to content writers to artists, it has seldom brought in jobs to the sector, but Prompt engineering is different. So, what does prompt engineering mean? it simply means talking to an LLM, so, what language do you talk in, of course in English? Alright even though, AI understands and responds in a lot of the languages, we all know English is the go-to language of an LLM. But just knowing English, doesn’t make you a good prompt engineer. For example, see the difference.

3. Image generation - even though you are not an artist

One thing that AI has taught us is, how creative it can get when used exceptionally. Image generation is now a cakewalk. You can make Leonardo Dicaprio play Holi to Spiderman, wearing a Batman costume, your imagination can go beyond your imagination. You don’t need to know LLMs or need to get through complex stable diffusion workflows (what is Stable diffusion), use the Copilot feature in the Windows home screen, and there you go, let your imagination go beyond the wilderness. But if you’re passionate and want to get into the integrities of image n=generation, Playground.AI is your go-to tool. You can sign up and use it for free.

4. Understand Code

You don’t need coding is what I have to say first. But what do I have to learn to code, well not really, you don’t need to know everything, in coding, you just need to know how it works. Just like an F1 driver does not need to know how to fix an engine but needs to know how it works. Similarly, you need to know, how code works and need not know how to create code to build a calculator from scratch. You can go and log in to BigBinary or Khan Academy to learn the basics of coding and know how it works. Knowing a bit of Python can help you in your journey forward.

5. How it works?

What is an LLM and how does it work to give you the right answers when your prompt something in GPT, all these questions are interesting, and pursuing your curiosity in this will help you get to the know how’s in AI. LLMs, GPU (some more terminologies), learning about this and how and why it works, will get you to the right spot.

Congratulations…! you’ve got ahead of the rest of the 85% of the world, who have heard of AI. Now let me tell you how to get above 95 % of the folks in AI.

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