73. Resident Exclusive Miniseries- A Beginner's Guide to AI

A full demonstration is available on our website. 

Join us for this month’s Raising Tech miniseries with Alex Reckard, a resident support technician for Tech@Home! Alex breaks down the basics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a way that’s fun and easy to follow. You’ll learn what AI is, how it works, and how it’s shaping our everyday lives.

From a cool AI-generated image quiz to hands-on demos with tools like ChatGPT, Alex keeps things interactive and engaging. You’ll also hear about the pros, the cons, and some of the most exciting ways AI is being used today. Don’t miss this chance to explore the world of AI and see how it’s changing the game!

A full demonstration is available on our website. 

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Transcript

Hey everyone, my name is Alex Reckard. I am a resident IT technician for Parasol Alliance, and I'm currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. I will be your presenter for this month's Tech at Home resident exclusive miniseries, and the topic is going to be all about artificial intelligence. Now, I'm sure plenty of you have heard of artificial intelligence before, so this will be a great refresher for a lot of you.

And if you haven't, hopefully you'll learn quite a bit with this presentation. With this presentation, we'll explore how machines mimic human thinking and discover practical applications for everyday life. Now going over the overview, which will be the structure for the presentation.

We're going to first go over understanding AI, also known as Artificial Intelligence, the benefits of AI, risks and concerns, practical applications, AI tools, and [00:01:00] Followed by demonstrations.

Alright, so I wanted to do a pop quiz at the beginning of the presentation. And as we go through each image, can you distinguish whether it was generated by AI?

I'll zoom in for you so that you can get a better look at each of the image,

alright? I'll give you a few seconds. You can feel free to pause the video if it makes it that much easier for you to get a better look at each of the image. And then, you can resume the video if you are paused, and then I'll let you know the answers.

 Alright, what do you think? Do you think you got all of them correct? Alright, so let's go on to the first one. So we can see that this image looks really great. He looks really cozy. He has a nice knitted sweater. And if you actually guessed if this was captured by a human being, unfortunately, it is not.

It's AI generated. And then going on to this image looks like it could be a great LinkedIn profile [00:02:00] photo. But if you mentioned that it was captured by a photographer, unfortunately it's not. It's AI generated as well. And you guys can probably catch on and see that there's a pattern going on and if you did, in fact, think that this was captured by a human being, unfortunately this photo is generated by AI as well.

All these photos were generated by artificial intelligence. And now you're probably thinking, how is this even possible? And I have to say, yes, it's quite Interesting how someone even came up with technology that can do this it's almost like magic to say the least, but the AI tool that I used to be able to make these images is a AI tool called mid journey.

And so mid journey allows for the generation of images. And it's really come a long way and these are some of the images that I came up for this pop quiz that I wanted to add a little bit of interactivity [00:03:00] to the presentation. With that being said, let's actually move on to the contents in the presentation as well.

Alright, now We will be understanding artificial intelligence, and with this slide we'll go over a lot of the origins and history of AI and how it became to be what it is now. Alright what AI does is that it mimics human logic and reasoning, and its origin was actually from Dartmouth in 1956 by John McCarthy.

And he coined the term of Artificial Intelligence. And so what Artificial Intelligence does is that it's actually a combination of various different subjects, such as Computer Science, also known as CS. Mathematics and Neuroscience. So it's a mix of math, computers, and even a bit of psychology and neuroscience.

And then AI is all about data driven, adaptive systems. [00:04:00] AI thrives on using data, and the more data that it gets, the better that it can learn. And so the better that it can learn can improve automation, as well as optimization. This helps influence globally and also it continuously evolves each and every day.

Now going on to the benefits of artificial intelligence. And so some of the benefits that it allows us to have is automation saves individuals time and effort. And a lot of repetitive tasks end up becoming a lot easier and more convenient for us and if you ever use YouTube you can understand that a lot of videos end up getting recommended to you.

That's actually artificial intelligence behind the scenes creating algorithms to better tailor your experiences for which video to watch and which video to recommend you watch next. This helps individuals gain access to more information as [00:05:00] well. It helps to foster innovation and enables further development, as well as optimize resource usage for environmental conservation.

Now, where there are benefits, there's always going to be risks with everything. Automation may actually lead to a bunch of job losses as well, because a lot of repetitive tasks end up being automated, and machines are being used for those repetitive tasks and then a lot of human workers unfortunately will lose their jobs due to artificial intelligence.

Another risk is privacy concerns via personal data collection. And whenever you're using an AI tool, you'll have to make sure not to use any sensitive information or privacy that you wouldn't want to share with a stranger. That's something that you would have to keep in mind. false information from prompt hallucinations as well.

And so what I mean about prompt hallucinations is [00:06:00] that sometimes in these AI tools is that it might give back information that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And it could come off as, false information at times. Another risk is reliance on tech also has a chance of reducing critical thinking.

The potential misuse in AI development can also be a major risk. It could be unfortunately used for spam or malicious purposes, and that's something that we have to be aware of. And then also a risk would be energy consumption. E waste and carbon emissions.

Alright, now going on to practical applications. There are a lot of virtual assistants that help perform tasks. If you're ever aware of Siri, Siri is a very popular Apple virtual assistant. That helps you with a lot of day to day tasks, such as being able to call people much [00:07:00] easier, or be able to send text messages, or search things on the web for you much quicker.

And if you're not familiar with Siri maybe you might be more familiar with Amazon's Alexa as well, and that allows you to do a lot of similar tasks. Another practical application is that algorithms personalize recommendations. AI can actually translate text and speech in real time. For example, if you're ever on a trip in a foreign country and you use an AI tool that allows one of the native speakers there that speaks in a different language, what you can do with the AI tool is get the input of their language and then whatever the output set as is your native language, it can allow you to translate

whatever that person is trying to speak to you about. Another practical application is autonomous vehicles help enhance safety measures as well. A very popular [00:08:00] autonomous vehicle or uses self driving is Tesla. And then smart home optimizes energy usage. So if you use a lot of smart devices for your home, you can be able to control the heating or cooling of your home as well as the lights.

If you ever need to turn off the lights whenever you're away from the home it just allows you to be able to optimize energy usage as well. And then another practical application is monitoring both your fitness and health metrics.

Alright, now moving on to artificial intelligence tools. So in this slide, we'll have different types of categories for each AI tool, with the first one being all about text. So text, AI tools and one that you might be very familiar of will be ChatGPT, and then followed by Gemini and Copilot. And a really popular imaging tool, and one that I've used in this presentation, [00:09:00] was called MidJourney.

And then another is DALL-E, and also Leonardo. And then going on to video AI tools, we have Sora, which is also another open AI tool, which is from ChatGPT and also Runway Machine Learning. Now, going on to voice AI tools, there's Speechify. natural readers, and AI covers that you can find on YouTube.

Image recognition AI tools are Google Lens, Apple Face ID, as well as Tesla. And, what Tesla does for image recognition, for example, is that their vehicles are able to identify what obstacles are on the road, so that if it ever needs to make a maneuver, It can be able to do a safe maneuver around that obstacle.

And then procedurally generated games such as Minecraft, Terrari, and Valheim, all use AI related technology to be able to achieve these procedurally [00:10:00] generated games. Alright, now going on to the demonstration of the video. So the demonstration will highlight examples from the AI Tool Chat GPT, including crafting delicious Thanksgiving recipes.

Designing festive and creative Christmas decorations and also tips for hosting holiday parties. And so the reason behind a lot of these examples that I listed is because the holidays are coming up and I just wanted to come up with some pretty practical examples that we can use in ChatGPT. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna click on this link and we're gonna go straight to ChatGPT.

And so the first, the first example was all gonna be about

crafting Thanksgiving recipes. So What we can do with ChatGPT, and so this is an open AI tool, and so in order to use it, all you'd have to do is go to ChatGPT. com, and then it'll ask you to make an [00:11:00] account, sign in. And then you can go right ahead and start chatting with the AI tool. And so you can really give it any sort of prompt.

So you type in to the text field and send it as if you were sending a message to a family, friend. And so it works very similar to that as well. So what we can do is we can type in ChatGPT and mention, " list me some popular Thanksgiving recipes, and ensure to include the ingredients and measurements."

Alright, and so now it's gonna start generating a lot of what we gave the prompt, and we can then see exactly what popular Thanksgiving recipes, there are, and also include the ingredients and measurements as well. So a classic roast turkey is very common for Thanksgiving. We can see [00:12:00] all the ingredients that it gives us.

such as a whole turkey and then all the remaining other types of ingredients, different herbs, different seasonings. And then we can then go down to the creamy mashed potatoes ingredients as well. We can see all the ingredients for there. And then classic stuffing ingredients. And then green bean casserole.

Jeez, this is making me super hungry. It's just in time for lunch coming up here soon. And so if you ever find that any of those recipes look great, you can actually ask it would you like the cooking steps for any of these? So let's say, give me the steps for a green bean casserole.

Alright, and now it will start generating us the steps for the green bean casserole, as well as give us a recap of the ingredients that we need for the recipe. Hope it's first given us each step by step of what to do, such as [00:13:00] preheating the oven, preparing the green beans, cooking the onions and garlic, making the sauce, etc.

And so this allows you to really follow it follow the recipe just how you typically would make a green bean casserole. So this is a great way for you if you're ever needing assistance with being able to make food in the future. So this is just one of the examples that you can do with it.

Let's see what another one of our, what was another one of our it was Designing Festive and Creative Christmas Decorations. We can say, give me some examples of Christmas decorations.

Alright, so here are some popular Christmas decoration ideas to bring festive cheer to your home. And it's going to give us a list of Christmas tree decorations that we can do, various different ornaments lights, tree topper, even like a tree skirt to add. Some indoor decorations that [00:14:00] we can use such as wreaths, table centerpieces, Christmas villages, outdoor decorations, what you could do with windows DIY decorations that you can do as well, and then theme decorations.

Then it later provides us would you like tips on creating a specific type of decoration. So this just allows you to go further in depth on some of the decorations that you'd like to do. Alright, now going on to our last. example, it's going to be tips for hosting holiday parties. So now we can ask GPT, "please give me some tips on hosting holiday parties."

Alright, and so it says hosting a holiday party can be a joyful yet challenging task. Here are some tips to help make your event successful, festive, and stress free. So it just mentions to plan ahead, decorate thoughtfully, set the mood with music, being able to prepare a holiday playlist a mix of [00:15:00] classic and modern songs as well, various different types of food and drinks that match the the event.

Entertainment activities, organization tips, and then create a welcoming atmosphere. And then it also mentions to don't overdo it. Alright, and then it, like I said, at the end it wants to give even more types of suggestions. Here's a bonus one. We can say list me five popular 2024 gifts

 For nephews or niece.

All right, so now it's going to list me five popular 2024 gifts for nephew or niece. So now we can see that a Nintendo Switch Lite is, one of the things that it mentions an instant camera, a name puzzle STEM related kits. DIY comic book kit. And these gifts cater to a range of interests and ages, making them thoughtful and engaging choices for your niece or nephew.

Like I said, you [00:16:00] can really put in whatever information that you want with this but just Keep in mind you can go as in depth as you want, but you have to make sure not to share any sensitive information that you wouldn't want to say to any strangers. That's just a disclaimer that I want to make for anyone that's using this in the future.

All right. I want to say thank you for letting me do this presentation. Like I said, my name is Alex Reckard. I am the resident I. T. Technician for Parasol Alliance. I'm currently based in Madison, Wisconsin, and it's been a great pleasure of being able to do this presentation. And I hope you have a great day. Bye.