Hi,

Welcome back to our AI journey, where we're peering around the corners of value exploration and iterative prompting. This week, we dove headfirst into the heart of what makes up the tone & personality of a prompt, casting our focus lights on the intriguing concept of 'values'.

* Self reflection and growth objectives:

* Personal values - what they mean and why they’re important

* Discussion about how our values evolve through time

* Business learning objectives:

* Strategic iterative questions to build the bigger picture

To begin, we engaged in a version of values-20-questions. The rules were simple, yet required thoughtful strategies: identify a specific value from a provided list using just questions. This exercise not only amplified our understanding of values but also became a playground to flex our iterative prompting skills.

We then took a turn at reconstructing the same prompt but infusing it with different values. This practice session offered us a panoramic view of how varied responses can be depending on the value incorporated. As we navigated this complex terrain, we incorporated these questions into our collaborative prompt platform.

Reflecting on our performance, we realized our collective iterative prompting skills had indeed strengthened. Still, we noticed room for improvement. We wished we had engaged in a matching exercise before diving into the question game and yearned for a deeper discussion around values. But these reflections are openings for roads we haven’t reached yet, and the insights will serve as our guiding posts for future sessions.

Following our introspective exploration of values, we turned the pages to the exciting world of superheroes. In a lesson designed to provide hands-on practice on iteration, we found ourselves immersed in super-hero creation stories and adventures.

This session bore witness to some special moments: Alex's engaging teaching style, and Akemi's invaluable contributions. Her visible experience of passionate curiosity was a sign that we’re going in the right direction. And more importantly, giving the kids important tools to gauge ‘direction’ on their own.

Yet, the superhero saga had its share of villains and pitfalls too. We found that having the kids create the superhero stories based on values reduced the immersion. The values yielded from the superhero tales could've used a dash of excitement, conflict and moral dilemma.

As we gather these lessons and gear up for our next adventure, we’re finding that both mentors and students are finding groove. The heart of prompting and personas is next, and will take our abilities to the next level. Stay tuned, fellow explorers. The magic of learning, invention, and articulation is only beginning to unravel itself.

Stay Curious!

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Hi,

Welcome to the second edition of our eye-opening summer journey, where we continue to duck & weave through the realms of artificial intelligence. This week, we plunged headfirst into the depths of clarity, specificity, and the reimagining of rules in the AI era. We encouraged bending, breaking, movin’/ shakin’ and re-face/making the rules - all in the pursuit of understanding how AI is transforming the landscape of our interactions and assumptions.

* Self reflection and growth objectives:

* using clarity and specificity to articulate our objectives

* using open-ended and closed-ended questions to spark curiosity (keeping in mind our north-star of passionate curiosity)

* how rules shape our interaction with society (heavy stuff)

* Business learning objectives:

* using concise language in working with technology and teammates

* how tone can reframe a conversation and ChatGPT

In the spirit of specificity, our young explorers embarked on the Peanut Butter Jelly Time challenge. The task? Guiding me through the process of making a PB&J sandwich - with me playing the part of an AI, taking their instructions in the most literal sense. Picture a jar of peanut butter perched atop a loaf of bread, or a jelly-smeared instructor. Story of my life… a hot mess. But also a practical (and tasty) illustration of the necessity for precise communication when dealing with AI systems and our teammates.

Next, we navigated the Pillow-Stuffed Animal Maze. Once again, I played the obtuse AI, this time amidst a labyrinth of cuddly obstacles. The kids had to guide me through while I was blindfolded, but the catch was the deliberate difference between the usage of 'should' and 'have to' in the instructions. The exercise was an eye-opener about clarity, specificity AND assumed rules and the spaces where they apply (or don't). One child broke the pattern, literally taking me by the hand and leading me through the maze – an exercise in bending rules that won't be soon forgotten. My hope is this won’t come back to bite me later when the kids are in high-school.

We then transitioned to a practical application session with ChatGPT. The focus? Open-ended vs. closed-ended prompts. We delved into the art of crafting prompts with clarity, specificity, and a heavy serving of tone.

The kids were fully engaged, thoroughly enjoying writing the prompts, and even surprising us with their inventive inquiries into subjects like quark subatomic particles (who knew we had budding physicists among us?) in creative and curios tones.

Recap of Lesson 2: Room for improvements? Absolutely. We’re learning to create smoother transitions between exercises given the stark contrast between physical activities and writing tasks. Additionally, we'll provide clearer instructions and more examples for the prompts.

A look ahead: As we look forward, we're planning to merge self-reflection exercises with practical application of ChatGPT, aiming for a cohesive learning experience. We’ll start to implement daily text prompts for the students and collaborate on the review and critique of the prompts/responses.

For all of us, the journey is just as important as the destination, and we’re learning as much from these early steps as we hope our students are.

Stay tuned as we continue to explore, invent, and articulate in the dynamic world of AI.

Stay Curious!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aiinspired.substack.com

Hi,

The summer’s theme of Hall of Mirrors is all about reflection and perspective in the realms of artificial intelligence, so let’s take a look at week 1. We recently concluded our inaugural session, and it's safe to say, the initial steps we took together were both bold and promising. All the while, we were happily tripping here and there and everywhere.

* Self reflection and growth objectives:

* introduction to personality types and collaboration

* introduction to learner types and how that guides our curriculum

* instilling growth mindset

* Business learning objectives:

* discuss traditional roles in business relative to identified skillsets.

* introduce collaboration and identify current state of collective skillsets and how that frames the conversation of what we can do and build together.

Our day began with a comprehensive overview of our course objectives, marking the trailhead for the exciting path ahead. Together, we delved into Lesson 1.1: "Who we are and our place in the world of artificial intelligence".

We navigated the intricate labyrinth of the Enneagram, pondering whether it mirrored who we were in that particular moment (emphasis on 'that moment', a gentle reminder that we are, indeed, works in progress). We explored how to offer support to our fellow trailblazers based on their Enneagram types. Notably, Alex candidly disclosed that his Enneagram type didn't seem to resonate, reminding us all that the Enneagram is not a life sentence but rather a springboard for self-discovery (podcast has more about this from Alex’ perspective).

Next, we tackled learner types. Interestingly, a majority of us are kinesthetic learners, indicating that our journey will include plenty of hands-on activities, supplemented by auditory and visual lessons. Our exploration of the 'Skills Bucket' invited us to contribute three personal skills and engage in a dialogue about traditional roles and the application of certain skills relative to those roles.

Recap of Lesson 1.1: We witnessed excellent engagement and insightful discussions about the roles. We began laying the groundwork for self-discovery and how this personal understanding can contribute to the world. However, we noticed some areas for improvement, including simplifying our Enneagram & learner type explanations.

After a rejuvenating lunch break, we embarked on Lesson 1.2: "Understanding AI and ChatGPT". We traced the history of AI, its common use cases, and dove into the specifics of ChatGPT, discussing its purpose, and capabilities. The hands-on experience of using a collaborative platform was an exciting highlight of this session.

Recap of Lesson 1.2: The kids' enthusiastic engagement and the opportunity to discuss appropriate uses of ChatGPT were noteworthy. We also realized that this session might be more effective before lunch and that providing more specific examples could enhance comprehension. The after lunch slump is real. That said, when they got their hands on the wheel, the excitement spiked. They enthusiastically asked Chat GPT several questions and successfully ‘hacked’ the assignment. This desire to ‘hack’ is really interesting in that we can utilize it to drive learning and adoption. We will reframe it as ‘hacking’ the workflow to increase efficiency AND engagement.

A look ahead: we're preparing to delve deeper into self-reflection skills like observation and specificity (enter Peanut Butter Jelly Time, and Blind Maze). We'll start crafting thoughtful prompts, expanding our Notion pages, setting up our comms platforms, and introducing daily prompt exercises via automated texts.

We've only taken the first few steps of this extraordinary journey, and there's a vast landscape of discovery that lies ahead. As we continue to learn, invent, and articulate, we'll keep refining our course. Our collective aim remains the same: to learn, to grow, and to journey together as a village.

Stay Curious!

P.S. A massive shout-out to Amy for her invaluable tips and tricks on the newsletter format! Let us know if we still broke it.

p.s.s. Format we’re trying is podcast embedded (so you don’t have to flip between both), photo, objectives, and then a newsletter recap. Open to suggestions, because we don’t know the rules.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aiinspired.substack.com