I’m passionate about learning about artificial intelligence and always excited to try new AI tools and products. That way you can give honest feedback on whether they are worth your time and money. But we needed to dig deeper into the basics of AI, where it came from, and how to incorporate software into our daily lives in practical ways.
After continuing to see ads online (I’m guessing from your AI-related internet searches), I gave in and watched MasterClass’ three-part Achieve More with GenAI series to learn about AI beyond the companies and platforms that promote and sell its capabilities to the masses.
What is AI Masterclass?
I wanted to learn from experts in the field in a clear and concise format. I was introduced to Ethan Mollick, Allie K. Miller, Don Allen Stevenson III, and Manuel Sancilly, who virtually taught me how AI could help us navigate our jobs and the world.
In this three-episode original series created for the MasterClass platform, you’ll learn across three modules: Generative AI to Unleash Productivity, Ethics in Creativity and AI, and Generative AI to Unlock the Future.
How much does the AI Masterclass cost?
MasterClass subscriptions cost between $120 and $240 per year. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee included with your membership. If you don’t think another monthly bill is economical, a two-week guest pass will appear in the chat thread. This could give you more opportunities to try learning and teaching platforms without commitment.
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Unlock productivity with AI
Miller and Mollick (who appear throughout each episode) began the series with the history and background of AI (did you know it was first studied in the 1950s?) and how it can be an asset at work. Molik cited AI as an example for improving writing from ideation to feedback, which, as someone who watches and writes about the series, struck me as both supportive and a bit ironic.
Mr. Miller taught us how to use AI to create a business plan.
1. brainstorming
2. evaluate
3. strengthen ideas
4. turn ideas into reality
5. Use AI for feedback
I have used AI for feedback on issues in my personal life, but I had never thought of using it for professional purposes. But when Miller introduced me to Yoodli, an AI-powered communication coach, and explained how AI can provide feedback, analysis, and tips on work, and Molik shared real-time feedback on presentations from Claude, an AI-powered assistant, I considered the possibility.
In the first episode of the MasterClass series, we learned that AI can be extremely helpful in understanding, organizing, and distributing information into different contexts, and that there are countless AI-powered tools that support the same approach when working with a specific medium or needing specific feedback or assistance.
Unleash your creativity with AI
Next, we delved into techniques to facilitate AI, AI-enabled business planning, and AI for visual design. The second episode of the series was written by Stevenson, a creative technologist fascinated by the marriage of art and technology.
Stevenson used Dall-E, an image generator, and Udio, an AI music generator, to define and demonstrate how to use an AI set centered around communication and clarity for business planning, logo design, storyboarding, and music generation. The overall content of his message was about how to use AI as a collaborator and how conversations between users and large-scale language models can help produce better results.
By the end of the episode, I had followed Stevenson’s guidance to create an image and draft a concept I’ve been thinking about for the past few weeks. By commissioning ChatGPT, I learned how difficult it is to take something from your own brain and put it into words that guide others. While I wasn’t able to build a brand identity kit as efficiently as Stevenson (in less than 5 minutes), I did create a ton of color schemes, images, and typography. They pleasantly surprised me and motivated me to keep creating for the brand.
The future of AI and ethics
In the last episode, we met Sansily, a futurist and advocate for the responsible use of AI, who shared how you can automate and optimize your daily tasks with the help of creating an “AI twin.” (This requires ChatGPT’s $20/month Plus plan.)
Your AI twin is a digital creation based on your knowledge, work experience, and values. Like ChatGPT, it stores memory and continues to learn about you and your habits the more you interact with it. Once created, an AI twin that looks eerily similar to Memoji can act as your personal assistant or as a digital tool that others can interact with and use.
Sansily shared how he inputs information through a custom ChatGPT digital representation of the brain and guides the “brain” through a seven-step system of twin design, context, instruction, and value assignment. Then test, publish, and monitor your AI twin. This will help you track your own growth, share it with others, and download and use it.
To conclude the series, Mollick shared four scenarios regarding AI and its potential. He asks humans to consider positive examples of AI related to Amara’s Law, which states that humans underestimate change in the short term and overestimate change in the long term. Is that fear justified or based on a lack of understanding? What was most appealing to me was how blown away I was by the amazing capabilities of AI and where it was taking us. As a reporter and a consumer, I have a lot to learn.
According to Mollick, AI growth is two or three times faster than Moore’s Law, which states that computer power doubles every two years. In other words, AI is moving faster than our brains can react. But not forever. At some point, he said, AI will settle down to a more understandable pace of evolution. In the meantime, I plan to explore and learn about all the new AI-powered GPT models available. Needless to say, using artificial intelligence, your dream of having twins can become a reality in just a few clicks.
Are AI Masterclasses worth paying for?
To better understand where AI is heading and how it will impact my life, I tried out the MasterClass series. As a result, I now have more knowledge to communicate my decisions and opinions, rather than relying on others to make them.
This was my first masterclass and I was very impressed. From the camera quality to the expert on-air personalities to the easy-to-understand content, I recommend this series especially to those who are afraid of AI, overwhelmed by its various uses, or have questions about artificial intelligence itself and its meaning in the world with humans.
You may consider yourself an expert on all things tech, but if for no other reason than to brush up on the definitions and metaphors specific to artificial intelligence, we recommend spending 90 minutes of your day on this series. At best, it will only increase awareness of how something that grows so quickly can function as a system, a collaborator, and in some scenarios a mentor, personal trainer, and twin.
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