ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Google and Goodwill are offering a free intro to AI course.
- I took the 6-hour course, and it’s quite good.
- If you want to come up to speed on AI, sign up here.
I think we can all agree that AI is here. It is becoming more and more embedded in our digital world. It’s also becoming more and more necessary for everyone in the workforce (or who wants to be in the workforce) to have at least a passing understanding of the basics of AI, and generative AI specifically.
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In this article, I’m going to tell you about an excellent free introductory AI course produced by Google and promoted by Goodwill Industries.
For as long as I can remember, Goodwill has been the place I take my crap when I clean out my closets, but as I learned this week, they do a lot more.
As I was told by their representative:
We are known for being a thrift store. But we are also the largest nonprofit provider of workforce development in the US. We help more than 350 people find jobs every day.
In association with Google.org, Google’s philanthropic organization, Goodwill and Google are offering the Google AI Essentials course for free to 200,000 or more people.
Taking the course
The course is described as a 6-to-7-hour course, and that’s about right. I watched a bunch of the videos at 1.5× speed, so I got through the whole thing in about four hours.
My top-line impressions are this: It’s a very good course. If you want to know the basics of generative AI, this is an excellent way to get started.
It’s balanced, in that the course covers the problems and limits of AI, and Google even mentions competitive chatbots, Microsoft Copilot, and Anthropic Claude.
Obviously, the Google execs featured in the course are excited by AI. Some of the video did seem a bit like the Vault-Tec promos from the Fallout games or Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard character from the TV show. But the Google presenters really do a great job of balancing their excitement with the realities and limitations of AI.
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The online course, hosted by Coursera, consists of five modules.
- Introduction to AI: Discusses the basics of AI, gives some background, and introduces the concept of generative AI along with its limitations.
- Maximize Productivity With AI Tools: Talks about the various tools used to work with AI, ranging from chatbots, image generators, and a smattering of other resources.
- Discover the Art of Prompting: Gives you hands-on experience writing prompts and learning how to maximize the effectiveness of prompting. Even if you’ve used generative AI, there are some tidbits you can pick up here.
- Use AI Responsibly: Covers the biases and tunnel vision that AI can produce. You should watch this even if you think you already know all about bias, because AIs can limit their responses in unpredictable ways. This module shows you how to think about that.
- Stay Ahead of the AI Curve: Part recommendation to keep studying, and part pitch for Google’s next course, it’s a good wrap-up to the overall course.
I liked how the course presented many foundational AI concepts clearly and effectively. I never felt like the Google folks were talking down to beginners, yet the information was all understandable.
There are also two coaching interfaces. The first can show up anytime you want while watching a video. I’ll show you the second one a bit later.
I did have an unexpected fanboy moment about halfway through the course, when “Vint” showed up in a training module.
Vint, for those who don’t know, is Vinton Cerf, holder of the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, and the Marconi Prize. Oh, and unlike a former politician, Vint really did invent the Internet. He’s one of the principal designers of TCP/IP.
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The course also had a number of interactive involvement devices. There were the usual quizzes, which can help increase learning retention by reinforcing educational content.
There were also AI-assisted activities where you had to produce a workable prompt according to guidelines. These were helpful and informative.
Good, clean AI fun
My absolute favorite element of the course was the interactive discussion sessions with Gemini. You had to successfully answer the chatbot’s questions to be allowed to continue the course. But while the quizzes were the standard fill-in-the-blank or multiple-choice formats, these discussions were fully interactive. It felt like having a conversation with a teacher over Slack.
They were fun. I went more than a little off-topic, spewing snarky responses about various sci-fi AIs, to see how the coaching AI would respond. It very politely but firmly informed me that I was referencing fictional AIs. It said we were talking about real AI, and nudged me to please get back on track.
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I’ve been using a topic-limited AI helper in some of the Harvard AI programming courses I’m taking as part of my ongoing continuing-education professional-development regimen. That AI allows you to ask questions but will only answer with leading questions rather than provide full answers.
In this Goodwill/Google course, the AI follows more of a guided-discovery pattern, asking you about topics you should have just learned about, and guiding you with your responses until you answer correctly. It was a great learning experience, and an excellent example of AI adding value to an experience.
Each module ended with a solid recap of the subjects discussed, and moved on to the next topic.
Share this with your friends
As you can probably tell, I was very pleasantly impressed with this class. While most readers of this article are likely to have at least some AI experience, this course could be a huge boon to the AI-curious and newbies to the AI world.
There’s also a certificate at the end that you can reference in your resume.
Coursera will automatically add the credential to your LinkedIn with a credential ID. It’s always nice to show employers and clients that you’re serious about continuing education.
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My recommendation is to share this course with people who might benefit from learning about AI. If you have anyone who tells you they need to learn more about AI, this is a safe, helpful, non-controversial, pretty much non-promotional, solid introduction that isn’t full of fluff and padding.
Google should be congratulated for producing a fair and open introduction to AI without hype. Goodwill definitely deserves kudos for providing their reach to those seeking work or seeking to learn more about these seismic changes in our working world.
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Once again, if you want to participate, all you need is an Internet connection and a Google account. Point your browser here. Also, some Goodwill locations provide access to the Internet for those who might not have access at home.
What about you? Have you taken Google’s AI Essentials course or another introductory AI class? Did you find it helpful, overwhelming, or just right? How do you think these kinds of courses can support people entering or re-entering the workforce? Do you know someone who could benefit from learning the basics of AI in a clear, accessible way? Let us know in the comments below.
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