I’m new to this whole AI thing and feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the options and tools out there. I want to learn how to get started with AI as a beginner, but I’m not sure what the simplest first steps are or which platforms are best. Can anyone break it down for someone starting from scratch? Any basic tips or must-know resources would be a big help.
Honestly, as a total noob to AI myself not that long ago, I get feeling lost when there’s, like, a jillion shiny new tools coming out every hour. My advice: don’t stress about learning everything. Most people never do! Start tiny and keep it low-stakes and kinda fun. For example, play around with ChatGPT (like this thing here, obviously); you just type stuff in and see what happens, no code needed. If you like pictures, DALL-E or Bing’s image generator just need you to enter a description and boom—art. For beginner projects, try copying examples from YouTube or blogs. If Python freaks you out, skip it until you feel braver; tons of sites let you point-and-click your way through AI stuff with no code (like Teachable Machine for easy AI models, or Canva’s “Magic Write” for text). Don’t even bother with big, scary datasets or fancy math right away. There’s no shame in just poking around! Most of this AI magic is like using a microwave: press a button and hope for the best; you don’t have to understand how the magnetron zaps your food. If you get bored or stuck, just move on—nobody becomes an AI expert overnight.
Look, I totally get the paralysis by analysis thing – the AI universe is just this endless buffet with too much on the menu and somehow everything looks both intimidating and kinda undercooked. @andarilhonoturno had some useful suggestions—no-code tools and just fiddling with outputs. But honestly, even that “just make art or write stuff” route can get boring fast if you don’t actually care about the results. Here’s my take: Start with whatever you already do daily and see if there’s an AI that helps. Like, use Notion’s AI to clean up your notes, play with GrammarlyGO to spice up your emails, or see what Google Photos’s “magic erase” can do to your meme collection (10/10 would recommend for pet photos with awkward backgrounds).
But maybe don’t waste too much time on “point and click until it looks cool” if you’re remotely curious about the tech behind it. I say, just open a free coding sandbox and tweak an AI tutorial just for fun (Python is scary but try a Colab notebook, you won’t break the internet, promise). You can find step-by-step guides like “Train an AI to recognize hotdogs” (yes, from Silicon Valley) that are genuinely fun and slightly more educational.
Also, I disagree a bit on avoiding “big, scary datasets”—they’re only scary until you see them up close. You don’t have to do calculus; just peek at a CSV and realize, “Wait, this is basically a spreadsheet with dreams.” Sometimes jumping in the deep(er) end actually helps you realize you can swim (or at least float with floaties).
TL;DR—Don’t just poke randomly, pick something you’d actually use, and don’t run away from code and data forever. The fun is in watching the thing break, anyway. And if you get stuck, there’s always someone online who’s already asked your “dumb” question before you.