How to train staff in the age of AI

It feels like everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence (AI). These days you can’t have a conversation online without someone chipping in ChatGPT’s thoughts on the matter.

 

Use of AI, particularly generative AI, is becoming widespread in the charity sector, but how can we all keep up with new developments?

 

You may feel like AI isn’t for you, but in truth, not learning about AI and grasping the basics of generative AI is a bit like someone in the 1980s saying that they’re not going to bother with all this computer stuff. We’re in the fourth industrial revolution and AI is here to stay.

 

 

The fundamentals for AI leaders and senior managers

 

AI for Everyone – DeepLearning.ai

 

Andrew Ng is a global leader in AI and he’s developed a learning platform to help educate others. It’s called DeepLearning.AI and has a course called AI for Everyone that’s well reviewed, takes six hours and covers:

• What is AI?
• Building AI projects
• AI in your company
• AI and society

This is a great course for leaders and senior managers who need to make decisions about when and how to incorporate AI skills and projects into your charity’s work.

 

 

Introduction to Generative AI – Coursera

 

Coursera, a popular online learning provider, has a large range of courses on AI. Two of the best reviewed and most appropriate courses for charities are AI for business specialisation in partnership with University of Pennsylvania and Introduction to Generative AI in partnership with Google Cloud.

 

AI for business specialisation is a one month, four course package that requires about ten hours per week of your time. Course subjects include: AI fundamentals for non-data scientists, AI applications in marketing and finance, AI applications in people management, and AI strategy and governance.

 

The course might be a good opportunity for group learning to develop a shared understanding of AI and its applications. Trustees, senior management and IT, marketing, finance, and HR specialists could all go through the course. 

 

Generative AI applications like ChatGPT, Bard, the new Bing, Dall-E, Midjourney and others are already being used in charities. Introduction to Generative AI will help you to define generative AI, describe generative AI model types, explain how generative AI works and describe generative AI applications.

 

Most people in the sector will need to know what generative AI is and how to use it effectively and with an eye on the risks. This is only a one-hour course, so it should squeeze into the tightest of schedules fairly easily.

 

Learning about AI isn’t a linear process. As soon as you feel like you’ve ticked off stage one, there’s a new thing to learn about and you feel like you’re back at the beginning again.

 

Luckily there are lots of people geeking out on new developments in AI and producing great summaries for the LinkedIn Learning AI Trends course. The best thing about this course is that it’s delivered by multiple tutors and added to each time there’s a major update – all you need to do is stay subscribed and keep up with the content.

 

 

Training and AI in the charity sector

 

It can be really tricky to find e-learning that is charity sector specific, but below we reference some resources on AI that you might find helpful.

 

NPC has a recording of a really fascinating discussion on AI in the charity sector: getting past the hype.

 

Charity Digital has an AI Hub that includes articles, podcasts and webinars such as how to get started with Web3 and AI.

 

The Charity Excellence Framework has a range of support and guidance to help you get started with AI at your charity. Start with their step-by-step guide to using ChatGPT and their AI tools.

 

 

Training on how to use AI in your day-to-day

 

If you feel like you’ve grasped the basics (including the risks) and you just want to get on with using AI to actually save you some time in your day-to-day, these courses are for you:

 

●     Boost your productivity with AI – Google Digital Garage

●     Microsoft co-pilot first look – LinkedIn  Learning

●     Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT – Coursera

●     ChatGPT, Midjourney, Firefly, Bard, DALL-E, AI Crash Course – Udemy

 

 

Risks when training with AI

 

Using AI in your organisation comes with responsibility for the risks involved. We know that large language model AI applications like ChatGPT, Bard, the new Bing, Midjourney, Dall-E can get bias baked into them from the datasets they’re trained on.

 

The more we begin to implement AI into our day-to-day work, the more important it becomes to understand and mitigate against this and other risks. The Algorithmic Justice League and the Ada Lovelace Institute are doing excellent work in this area and their newsletters are great learning resources.