Intro to AI

Do not index

🤖 What is AI?

Firstly, just to be clear, this isn’t an AI course - it’s a no-code X AI bootcamp. But we think it’s pretty important for you to understand the basics as there’s a key link to no-code (and a pretty exciting one which you’ll discover later…lets just say together no-code and AI will unlock A LOT of opportunities for you 👀)

Here goes…

Let’s just clear something up

AI isn't just one single thing; it's more like a big family with lots of different members. You might have seen movies like I-Robot, where they show AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) - this type of AI can think and feel just like a human. But don't worry, that's still just make-believe! 😅 The real AI we use every day is way more down-to-earth. Like when Netflix suggests shows you might like based on what you've watched before, or the technology that helps self-driving cars see the road - these are examples of the practical kinds of AI we interact with all the time.

Watch the below video to build your AI literacy in just 5 mins!

What we mean by AI (in the context of no-code)

Generative AI.

This is essentially a type of AI that can create or generate new content, ideas, or solutions from human input. This could be anything from writing a poem, composing music, designing an image, or even coming up with a strategy for a game. If you’ve used Chat-GPT, you’ve already been using GenAI.

In our case, we’re talking about how GenAI can help us build our apps (or digital solutions) without writing any code. You can think of it like a co-builder that can do all sorts. Design a new page on your website, suggest improvements to your app layout, or even come up with entirely new functionalities based on what it learned from your previous designs.

You’ll find out more about this stuff in the next chapter all about no-code x AI!

📚 Extra reading

How AI works mini series

💡 Core concepts

There are lots of concepts related to AI we could introduce you to. But we’re only going to focus on prompting for today. Why? If you can learn the basics of writing good prompts, you’ll be able to leverage the power of no-code and AI together far more easily.

Wait, what do we mean by prompting?

It’s essentially how you communicate with AI. And determines what results you get back. The more specific you are with your prompt, the better results. We have a framework that’s useful for structuring your prompts, regardless of what tool(s) you’re using - Chat-GPT, no-code or otherwise.

Let’s get into…

What is the PREP Framework

It’s is a four-step process to help you create effective prompts, allowing the AI you’re communicating with to generate specific outputs based on your requirements. It stands for:

Prompt: Setting the context for your interaction

Role: Defining the AI’s role in this scenario.

Explicate Instruction: Clearly stating what you want the AI tool to do.

Parameters: Defining the scope and limits of the task.

Here are three examples of how you might use the PREP framework for different types of documents:

Product Requirements Document (PRD)

Prompt: We're working on a new feature for our app that will help users manage their time more effectively.

Role: You're an expert product manager with deep technical and design experience.

Explicate Instruction: Draft a product requirements document for this feature. The document should include sections such as: an overview, goals, features, user experience, and technical requirements.

Parameters: The document should be detailed but succinct, aiming for about 2-3 pages in length.

Legal Document

Prompt: We need to create a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for a potential business partnership.

Role: You are an experienced legal advisor who understands the intricacies of business law.

Explicate Instruction: Draft a comprehensive NDA. The document should include sections like: definition of confidential information, obligations and exceptions, term and termination, and legal remedies.

Parameters: Aim for a complete, legally sound document, but keep it as concise as possible, ideally not more than 5 pages.

Marketing Strategy

Prompt: We're launching a new product and need to create a marketing strategy to promote it.

Role: You're a seasoned marketing strategist with a knack for innovative and impactful campaigns.

Explicate Instruction: Develop a comprehensive marketing strategy. The strategy should cover sections such as: executive summary, target audience, unique selling proposition, marketing tactics, budget, and key performance indicators (KPIs).

Parameters: The strategy should be thorough and should fit within a 10-page document.

As will become apparent in the next chapter, rather than content generation tasks, you may leverage AI inside no-code tools to build your database, create pages, design sections, write formulas or something else - in all cases, you’ll have to prompt the tool you’re using to extract any one of those outcomes.

Try it out

As you can see, the PREP framework allows you to create specific, tailored prompts. Try it out for yourself (with ChatGPT or Bard for example) - and feel free to use our cheatsheet for some help too.

🛠 AI tool landscape

Since the release of Chat-GPT there has been an explosion of AI tools (see below!).

You can learn more about these on our free course here - but to keep us hyperfocused (in the context of building apps without code) there’s no need for a deep dive here (it’s a big rabbit hole 🙈).

📚 Extra reading

There’s an AI for that - the worlds biggest directory of AI tools

⚡️ AI jargon buster

The world of tech is full of jargon, and AI is of course no different. In case you want to boost your AI vocabularly, check out the below…

A-Z of AI

What can AI do

🕺 Who to follow in AI

If you want to dig deeper into this space, you can treat Twitter like your free university by following the best of the best. Take a look at the folks who were tagged in response to this tweet…