Noelle Russell led a four-hour workshop where non-technical people built a working chatbot using a café menu. Participants ranged from parents to risk managers. When the bot responded in multiple languages and admitted it was a bot, the room erupted.
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Our Lindsay Masters shows us just how easy it is to get started because Lindsay, you actually did this yourself. Yeah, you know, a lot of us assume that we need to know coding to create an AI program. You may have heard of Python or C++, but with AI, you don't have to know how to code, and I found that out for myself recently by creating my own chatbot. We start by getting to know the basics. And then getting to work.
You know, we're learning together. I have some skills and y'all have some skills.
Noelle Russell, the CEO of the AI Leadership Institute, guides us through the process. I create a bot called the WGLA Cafe based on the menu from the cafe in our office building. That moment of seeing it work, I just felt so good. Like, I did this. I made it work. My bot is multilingual and even admits it is a bot when I ask. Despite this workshop being part of Modev's Voice in AI conference, many people in the room have never coded.
With zero skills on building, absolutely zero. Only skills in thinking about risk related to AI deployment and development.
Oh my gosh, it actually worked. The bot worked. I can definitely go back to my kids and say, I can do something you can't.
Every job is going to need people with AI skills. So I encourage everyone to go and build a system. Let's say you're, you're a parent at home. You can use an AI system. You can prompt it to take a picture of your pantry and Generate a menu from what you have in your pantry.
Russell also says learning for yourself demystifies the technology.
I'm hoping people, first of all, will realize that it's not magic, right? That at the end of the day, it's a human. And now everyone in this room, regardless of their technical skills, now know what it's like to build a machine.
I have to admit that I was elated when my bot worked. I even texted my mom. And also everyone whose bot worked got these amazing I Love AI t-shirts. It was really cool. The whole workshop took just 4 hours, so it doesn't take long to learn a new New skill. And of course, you can see all my AI and tech reporting at wjla.com. Our
