Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is already part of your day: face unlock, spam filters, maps, recommendations, and chatbots like ChatGPT. This course explains what AI really is, how it works, where it helps and where it goes wrong, in plain English, with no technical background needed.

What you’ll learn

• What AI, machine learning, deep learning and generative AI actually mean
• How AI learns from data, and why data decides how good (and how fair) it is
• How chatbots work, why they sometimes make things up, and how to get reliable results from them
• How AI is used in health, education, business, finance, farming and the creative industries
• What AI means for jobs, and your rights when a computer makes decisions about you
• The real risks: bias, privacy, deepfake scams and misinformation, and how to protect yourself
• What the EU AI Act and UK rules require, and how to use AI safely at home and at work

Real examples

Learn from real cases including the 2020 A-level grading algorithm, a $25 million deepfake fraud, AI lending to farmers in Kenya, and the NHS trial of AI in breast cancer screening.

How the course works

• 8 topics and 20 short lessons, about 6 hours in total
• Diagrams, worked examples and “check yourself” questions in every lesson
• A quiz after every topic, a graded ethics assignment, and a final exam
• A certificate when you pass