Introduction to Conversational and Generative AI

An introduction to AI, a technology which seeks to understand and generate natural language, allowing for dialogue between humans and machines.

ChatGPT has recently propelled Conversational AI into the limelight but, in this course, we look to unpick the subject from the foundations, eventually building up to these Large Language Models and the extraordinary use cases they can unlock.

An understanding of  Python to the level of our Introduction to Programming with Python course is required.

Some understanding of Machine Learning concepts would be useful but not essential.

Who is it for?

This course will be useful for business leaders and technology professionals with an interest in Artificial Intelligence. An understanding of Python is necessary.

Timetable

The course runs Tuesday evenings, 6pm - 8pm

Benefits

On completion, you will have a strong understanding of both the theory and application of Conversational and Generative Artificial Intelligence.  You will feel more confident making technology decisions for your business in this arena but also well-equipped to embark on your own technical journey with AI models and products.

We will start by exploring how unstructured data sources–text and voice–and see how they can be interrogated to extract insight that isn’t typically available from more traditional datasets. We will utilise Sentiment Analytics and Intent Recognition in our mission to teach a machine to understand human language.

We’ll then move to the branch of Natural Language Generation where we explore and develop the machinery to generate an intelligent response or answer. For instance, given a news article, how can we provide a short summary of the contents or how might we build a chat bot that could respond to questions?

The material will cover both the concepts and theory as well as bring them to life through hands-on practical work and examples. We will also top and tail this course with a history of Conversational AI and an examination of the ethics involved when the ‘intelligence’ boundary begins to blur between human and machine.

Teaching would be hands-on in a sequence of interleaving lectures and tutorials. There will also be practical exercises that students can work on outside class time.

An understanding of  Python to the level of our Introduction to Programming with Python course is required.

Some understanding of Machine Learning concepts would be useful but not essential.

English requirements

You will need a good level of spoken and written English to enrol on this course.