Free taster course
AI Literacy
How AI Actually Works
Most people's first real conversation with an AI tool feels like magic, right up until it isn't. It writes a perfect email in five seconds, then confidently tells you a fact that is completely wrong. It follows one instruction perfectly, then ignores a similar one in the very next message. This course removes the mystery. By the end you will understand, in plain terms, what is actually happening when you type something into an AI tool, why it behaves the way it does, and how to get much better results out of it. No technical background required. No prior AI experience required.
- Price
- Free — always
- Duration
- About 1 week, self-paced
- Modules
- 5
- Badge
- On completion
The five modules
No technical background required. No prior AI experience required.
- Module 01
How AI Generates Answers
Next-token prediction, why AI is brilliant on familiar ground, and why it hallucinates.
- Module 02
What AI Knows (and Doesn't)
Training data, knowledge cutoffs and why local or niche topics get thin, unreliable answers.
- Module 03
AI's Working Memory
The context window, why long chats lose detail, and why a new chat is a stranger.
- Module 04
Getting Better Results (Steerability)
How the specificity of your instructions directly controls the quality of the output.
- Module 05
Putting It Together — A Practical Diagnostic
A four-step method for working out why an AI answer went wrong, and fixing the real cause.
Your badge
Finish all five modules and pass each knowledge check (70% or higher) to earn the AI Literacy Explorer badge.
Continue learning (free)
Next in the free path: Working With AI — the four habits that turn understanding into consistently good results. After that, AI for Builders applies those habits to coding and building.