We're early

Taking your first steps into AI. A simple approach.

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Friends,

The market for artificial intelligence has grown beyond 184 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, a considerable jump of nearly 50 billion compared to 2023. Last week, AI startups raised $1.5B dollars just last month according to my finance friends in the know.

And it will continue to grow.

The reason why I’m telling you this is because I bumped into a reader last week - who said that they had read from this newsletter that ChatGPT usage is down. Not many of my family or friends use AI or ChatGPT regularly. So the curious phase may have passed - but I truly believe we are early in this curve. Forget about the fear-mongering you are seeing.

So, if you haven’t yet started with AI, please do.

And so I want to make things simple for people who haven’t used AI to start using it quickly. So if this isn’t you please forward this to a friend who needs to get on the bus!

The reason is this: you will get left behind if you don’t become at least au fait with AI.

Keep it simple. Start with Chat-GPT. Sign up for an account on OpenAI (the company)

Once you start, think of what you might want to find out, how you might use google for example. I would type something like: Give me a recipe for pancakes that includes chocolate chips. And one you have the result do it again and change.

That’s the basics of prompt engineering. And you don’t need any skills to get going with this so, just be articulate and ask for things or information that you might need. Keep playing.

If you want some prompting for your prompts - try these simple examples.

If you want to invest some time, I would recommend signing up to a couple of courses. You don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars and get ripped off. Here are some free recommendations:

1. Datacamp - introduction to chat-GPT - It takes one hour and is free. It will teach you the basics of prompt engineering.

2. Udemy - ChatGPT for Beginners: The Ultimate Use Cases for Everyone. Another 1 hour free course putting context around what you can do in your daily life

3. Coursera - Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT - 18 hour commitment if you want to hone your trade

I share these with you because it is so easy to get started and I know many of you will be reading about AI but won’t have taken that first step. You don’t need to be overwhelmed by the next 50 tools announced every day. Or the latest version of an LLM. It’s about how you will use it for yourself and your work.

One of the areas I see an opportunity for smaller businesses (and consultants who serve small businesses) over the coming two years is around automation and AI. There will be companies that have been doing things for years using bookkeeping and doing repetitive actions where AI automation using Zapier workflows will take over and change what might take you and your team hours every week. The entry point to making changes to this type workflow is low. With so many no-code tools available, and python developers available at the click of an upwork contract, this will be the equivalent hygiene approach that businesses will expect of themselves over the coming years.

And because you’ll know the basics, you’ll be well placed to make big improvements in your day-to-day.

Stay Curious - and don’t forget to be amazing,

Rahim

PS Between 2018 and 2022, teenagers in "rich countries" fell significantly behind in reading and math due to the pandemic.

PPS "It's almost as if the first 30 years of the internet was to build up data sets that can now be optimized"

Here are my recommendations for this week:

Part of my workflow on consuming and learning information has been ramped up by AI tools. One that I’m using regularly is TubeonAI which creates summaries of videos and podcasts in seconds. If you need to up your lifelong learning to stay ahead of the game, sign up for free and then use code BOXOFAMAZING for a premium discount) Sign up

Now

1. How One Bad CrowdStrike Update Crashed the World’s Computers: A defective CrowdStrike kernel driver sent computers around the globe into a reboot death spiral, taking down air travel, hospitals, banks, and more with it.

2. I Gave Myself a Month to Make One New Friend. How Hard Could That Be? Here’s an incomplete list of phenomena that experts in the subject have blamed for not being able to make friends: apartments without dining rooms, Covid-19, “technology,” babies, not enough hiking.

3. The ‘PhD influencers’ logging lab life on TikTok and Instagram: Graduate students are building big followings, making money and overturning science stereotypes by posting on social media.

4. How to Be (Reasonably) Hard on Yourself: “it’s generally a waste to go after big goals like “run a marathon” or “publish a book” just to check them off your bucket list. You’ll exert a huge amount of effort only to produce the worst version of something that you’re capable of. It might still be good! But you only get really close to your ideal of good by getting more reps in.”

5. On Being a Digital Minimalist Family in a Tech-Saturated World: How do you solve the tech problem of the next generation?

Next

1. What is AI? - Everyone thinks they know but no one can agree. And that’s a problem. (must read)

2. Lessons learned in 35 years of making software. It’s more about soft skills than technical skills

3. A scientist took a psychedelic drug — and watched his own brain 'fall apart': The results, which appear in the journal Nature, suggest that psychedelic drugs work by disrupting certain brain networks, especially one that helps people form a sense of space, time and self.

4. The three factors holding back VR: It may just be too expensive to take the steps ahead. Not for now then.

5. Where's the Synthetic Blood?: Synthetic blood could solve shortages, but only if technical challenges are surmounted and costs are slashed.

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