After this lesson, you will be able to: Build a working mental model of what AI actually is, where it came from, and where it's heading.
AI isn't one thing. It's a half-century-old field with multiple revolutions, symbolic AI, machine learning, deep learning, and now large foundation models. This lesson gives you the vocabulary and timeline so the rest of the track lands in context.
This is a free introductory lesson. No purchase required.
AI is the field of building systems that perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, perception, reasoning, language, decision-making.
AI, the broad field.
ML, subset of AI; learn from data.
Deep Learning, subset of ML; uses neural networks with many layers.
LLM. Large Language Model; deep learning trained on text.
Generative AI, produces new content (text, images, code).
AGI. Artificial General Intelligence (hypothetical, broad-task AI).
ML fundamentals → neural nets → LLMs → using AI APIs → building agents → ethics & safety → a real project. By the end, you'll be building AI-powered apps and reasoning about which model to use when.