AI Fundamentals

Section 1 – Setting the Stage

  1. What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
    • Practical examples from daily life (Google Maps, Siri, ChatGPT)
    • Difference between Narrow AI and General AI
  2. AI vs Machine Learning (ML)
    • Simple analogy (AI as the goal, ML as the method)
    • Infographic comparing AI, ML, and Deep Learning
  3. Statistical ML vs Deep Learning
    • Why statistical methods still matter
    • Where deep learning excels
    • Comparison table with real-world examples

Section 2 – Statistical Machine Learning

  1. Linear & Logistic Regression
    • Concepts in simple terms
    • Real-life applications (predicting house prices, spam detection)
  2. Decision Trees
    • How they “ask questions” to make decisions
    • Use case: loan approval system
  3. K-Means Clustering
    • What “grouping data” really means
    • Example: segmenting customers for marketing

Section 3 – Deep Learning Basics

  1. What is a Neural Network?
    • Structure: input, hidden, output layers
    • Visual diagram + human brain analogy
  2. Different Architectures of Neural Networks
    • Feedforward NN
    • Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) – for images
    • Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) – for sequences
    • Transformers – for large-scale language & multimodal tasks

Section 4 – Transformers in Depth

  1. Why Transformers Changed AI
    • No recurrence → faster training
    • Attention mechanism → context understanding
    • Parallelisation & scalability
  2. Architecture of a Transformer Model
    • Encoder, decoder, and self-attention explained with a visual flow
  3. Applications of Transformers
    • Text summarisation, translation, image generation, speech recognition
  4. Popular Transformer Models
    • BERT – for understanding text
    • T5 – for text-to-text tasks
    • DALL·E – for image generation
    • Whisper – for speech-to-text
    • Trivia box: fun facts about each model

Section 5 – Emerging AI Trends

  1. AI Agents & Agentic AI
    • What are AI agents?
    • Examples: AutoGPT, Devin, ChatGPT’s advanced agents
  2. Physical AI
    • AI in robotics and real-world automation
    • Examples: Boston Dynamics robots, AI-driven warehouse bots
  3. What’s Next? The Future of AI
    • Realistic trends in the next 5–10 years
    • Potential career paths in AI