How Does AI Work?

Welcome to the introductory course How Does AI Work! This course gives you the superpower of understanding what happens behind the scenes when you use AI. No technical background or programming experience required. Each section builds on the previous one and gives you concrete insights.

The difference between “using AI” and understanding how it works

Anyone can open ChatGPT, ask a question, and get an answer. But there’s an enormous difference between just “testing AI a bit” and actually understanding how and why it works the way it does.

What this course gives you

After the four sections you will:

Understand what AI really is and why the AI explosion is happening right now.
Know how AI learns and understand why some tasks are perfect for AI while others aren’t.
Master the basics of language models – how they work, what a context window is, and how RAG helps the model handle large amounts of data.
Recognize strengths and limitations – identify when AI is the right tool and understand why bias and hallucinations occur.
Apply AI in your work – a concrete method for finding use cases and taking responsibility for AI output.

Who is this course for?

This course is for you if you’re a beginner who wants to understand AI, make smarter decisions about when to use AI, build AI assistants in Intric with a solid understanding of what’s possible – and understand the opportunities and limitations of AI. No technical background needed; the course is designed to be practical and accessible for anyone curious about the technology.

We recommend taking the Prompting Course: Basics after this one. Once you understand how AI works, mastering effective communication with it becomes much easier.

📄 Course outline

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We recommend going through the sections in order. Each section ends with a quiz.