The places to start in your learning about AI
Get up to speed on maybe the most interesting thing happening right now, using about 8 hours of material
AI is maybe the most interesting topic to follow right now. The hype is justified. I’m writing this as a short list of videos (and one blog post) I’d give anyone I know who wants to start following it seriously. There are a lot of directions you can go in learning about AI, but having a solid core understanding of how the current paradigm works is vital for everything else. If you consume the material below and take careful notes, you can get that understanding.
How to engage with the material
Take detailed notes. There are a lot of subtle ideas in AI and it is easy to feel like you understand them when you don’t. Maybe make flashcards for new terms.
Have an LLM handy. Buy a subscription to ChatGPT or Claude and ask it questions about anything you need clarity about. Once you’re done with the videos and reading, play around with the LLM for a while to get a sense of its current abilities and limitations. Experiment with going deep on topics that you’re interested in.
The Material
I’ve listed these in the order I’d consume them!
3Blue1Brown Series on Neural Networks - 2.5 Hours
3Blue1Brown is my favorite YouTube educator. His series on calculus and linear algebra are each some of the best educational content on the internet, and he also made my favorite physics education video. His series on neural networks is another masterful explanation. It’s worth watching even if you don’t care about AI to get a sense of just how well YouTube can work for explaining difficult material (I personally find that animated visuals help a lot here). Here’s the full series:
Understanding AI Intro to LLMs Explanation - 0.5 Hours
Understanding AI is a great blog. The author has a good grasp of the technical, economic, and social outlook of short term AI trends. His explainer for LLMs is considered one of the best anywhere:
The Cognitive Revolution’s AI Scouting Report - 5 Hours
The Cognitive Revolution is a useful and very wide-ranging podcast on AI. Their “Scouting Report” is an attempt to summarize all the main background ideas about the current situation with AI. It’s incredibly useful: