AI for the Rest of Us: Your Guide to Thriving in the Future

Stop nodding and start understanding

This Week on Gradient Ascent:

• AI for the Rest of Us ❤️‍🔥

AI for the Rest of Us:

When I first set foot inside the EECS building in Michigan fourteen years ago, I had no idea that I'd have a career in machine learning. Honestly, I had no idea what I wanted for lunch that day, let alone my life.

Can learning AI be fun?

I went to grad school to learn how I could apply computer vision to solve real-world problems. My professors advised me to study allied fields to inspire my research. That's how I found out about machine learning in the first place. 

But, there was no Coursera, newsletters, YouTube videos, or ChatGPT¹. I didn't know where to start, how deep I had to go, what was relevant, and so on. I got by, but a sense of unease lingered that I resolved only years later².

Where am I going with this?

The world is rapidly evolving thanks to widespread AI adoption. Just this week, we saw GPT-4 code up a functioning website from a diagram on a piece of paper!

Now more than ever, we all need a solid footing to understand how AI works at least a high level (or maybe a little bit deeper) so that we can know when to apply it and find opportunities to unlock the potential of this technology in our own lives. 

I regularly receive questions from product managers, executives, software engineers, and solopreneurs. Their questions almost always revolve around jargon, terminology, and how specific algorithms work.

I see them having the same challenges I had when I first started grad school. Unfortunately, their work isn’t related to AI.

Today we have an abundance of AI learning resources. But there are still many who have been left behind.

Why?

The target audience for these learning resources either knows how to code, has (or is working on) some formal degree in a related technical field, or has both of these. 

So what about the rest of us?

I wanted to help these people. I was curious if I could teach them AI in an entertaining way and without any jargon syrup that puts people to sleep. 

After several weeks of hard graft in the background, I think I've figured out how. 

Today, I'm excited to announce the pre-sale of my book: AI for the Rest of Us

This book is for the rest of us.

It will make learning AI 10x easier and 1000x more fun.

It's for people who want to learn machine learning and AI and see how it's applied, where it works, and how it works. 

But without the need to know how to code, without the need to dive into hours and hours of math and equations, and without the need to go and get a degree before you can actually start.

Here's a quick TL;DR of what you'll get:

• Multi-level explanations: I know you don't have the time to sift through textbooks. Everything in this book is explained in levels. So you can customize your learning experience. Stop where you need to. When you need to.

• Fully illustrated: This isn't any ordinary textbook. It's whimsical, witty, and fully hand-illustrated with doodles and diagrams you're used to seeing from me. There may even be a story involved. Here's an example of concept art for the book.

  

  How vision transformers are trained

• Fundamentals and Modern Blockbusters: The book will cover a healthy mix of fundamentals and modern applications like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion. I can't cover everything, but I will cover what's important!

• Early bird discount on all tiers: As supporters of my writing, you will get a 20% discount on all the tiers on top of the early bird pre-sale pricing. Just use the code GRADASCENT at checkout. Once the book launches, the prices will go up exponentially with demand.

For the first time since starting this newsletter, I'm asking for your help.

How you can help me

If you’d like to support my work and make the pre-sale a success, I'd be highly honored. Here's how you can help:

1. Preorder the book: I promise you'll smile when you read the book. While it's freshly baking in the oven, take advantage of the early bird pricing and discount (Use GRADASCENT at checkout for 20% off).
   

2. Invite friends to preorder the book: If you know of friends or colleagues who'll benefit from this book and the bundles, please forward this email or share a link to the landing page.
   

3. Share on social media: If you pre-ordered the book and/or are just really excited for me, share the landing page with your social network. Please tag me so that I can repost it.
   

4. Provide a testimonial: If my writing has helped you achieve something or you simply enjoy it, share a sentence or two with your name, and I'll be honored to have it on the landing page.
   

5. Provide feedback: What would you like to see in the book? Do you like the landing page? What can be better? Provide your input to make it better.

If you are unable to purchase the book or any of these bundles at this point, that's totally fine. There's no obligation. 

Thank you so much for your support. I honestly couldn't have dreamt about doing any of this without your readership. I value your time and attention above all.

We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming from next week.

1. Feel like a dinosaur just writing this out 😀

2. I didn't have the foundation that I thought I would after a post-graduate degree. Fast forward to 2012. Professor Andrew Ng's Coursera course was the first to make me feel that machine learning wasn't as intimidating as it seemed. But it was Jeremy Howard's fast.ai course that completely changed the way I learned machine learning.