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Wise Minds, New Tools

AI, in plain English

Thirteen stops.
One thing to do at each.

Not a course, and not a thing you can fail. Every stop is one small job you do at your own keyboard, and you come away understanding a little more about why it worked. Barnaby is waiting at all of them.

Free to read. Nothing to install. No email address.

Barnaby, an owl in a graduation cap holding a tablet, who guides you along the trail.

Hello. I am Barnaby. Nothing here will ask you to buy anything, and nothing you type can break anything. Start wherever you like.

  1. Stop 1 Video Meet a chatbot for the first time Open one, type an ordinary sentence, and read what comes back. Then two small experiments that tell you what you are dealing with. Three small moves in one sitting, because they only make sense together. By the end you will understand this thing better than most people who use it every day. The view from here: It predicts, it does not look up
  2. Stop 2 Tell it who you are and what you want Ask once plainly, then ask again with the details added. Put the two answers side by side. It cannot see your kitchen, your calendar, or the fence you have been arguing about. Tell it, and the answer improves more than you would expect. The view from here: Why context changes everything
  3. Stop 3 Say what was wrong, and ask again Do not start over. Tell it what missed, and watch it correct course inside the same conversation. That is too long. You have the year wrong. Say it the way I would say it to my brother. All of those work, and none of them will offend it. The view from here: It holds on to the conversation
  4. Stop 4 Talk to it instead of typing Set up the microphone once, then ask your next three questions out loud. Some days typing is the enemy. Talk to it instead and let it do the spelling. It will not comment on your accent either. The view from here: A way in on the days typing hurts
  5. This way to Cars That Drive Themselves From the car that warns you to the car that drives itself.
  6. Stop 5 Have it read a confusing letter An insurance notice, a bill, anything with too much small print. Ask what it actually wants from you. Bring the one that has been sitting on the counter for a fortnight. That is the letter this is for. The view from here: What to hand it, and what to hold back
  7. Stop 6 Get ready for a doctor’s appointment Build the list of questions you want to ask, then print it and take it with you. This is for preparing, never for diagnosing. Walk in with your questions written down. Every doctor I have met prefers it that way. The view from here: The line between preparing and diagnosing
  8. Stop 7 Shorten something long Feed it the forty paragraph email, ask for the short version, then read the original anyway. Read the long one afterwards and notice what it decided you did not need. That is the whole lesson, and it takes about two minutes. The view from here: What a summary quietly leaves out
  9. This way to Data Centers and the AI Revolution Where all of this actually runs, and what it costs.
  10. Stop 8 Catch it being wrong on purpose Go back to the subject you know inside out, and push until it says something that is not true. Time to be difficult. It will not sound any different when it is wrong, and that is exactly the thing worth seeing with your own eyes. The view from here: What confident and wrong looks like
  11. Stop 9 Check something it told you Take one claim from an earlier stop and go and find it somewhere else. Trust, then check. Three quick ways, none taking more than a minute. Do it often enough and it stops being a chore and turns into a reflex. The view from here: A habit worth keeping for good
  12. Stop 10 What never to type in A short list, and one look at your own privacy settings while you are here. Short enough to read twice, and worth reading twice. Then we change a couple of settings together and you are done. The view from here: What these companies keep
  13. This way to Getting Your Name Off The Lists Six pages, large print, with the numbers you need to call.
  14. Stop 11 Give it a job with three parts Read this, tell me what it wants, draft a polite no. All in one go, then check all three got done. You can ask for more than one thing at a time. Check each part though, because it will occasionally skip one and never mention it. The view from here: How much you can ask for at once
  15. Stop 12 Write one page of family history You supply the memory, it handles the sentences. Then send the page to somebody related to you. The memory is the part nobody else has, and no amount of clever software can supply it. That is worth sitting with for a moment. The view from here: Where your words end and its words start
  16. Stop 13 Teach one person one thing Sit somebody down and walk them through stop 1. Go slower than feels necessary. They will get stuck somewhere you never expected. That is the moment you find out how much you really know. The view from here: The parts you only thought you knew
  17. Barnaby, waiting at the end of the trail.

    That is the whole trail

    You did the walking. Come back for the side trips whenever you feel like it. They will still be here.

    See handouts from John’s classes

There is no wrong order If you came here because you want the junk phone calls to stop, go straight to Safety Guardians instead. The numbers are a suggestion, not a queue.

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