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AI

AI Foundations

Overview

Understand how modern AI works, what it can and cannot do, and how to start building with it.

A calm, practical introduction to artificial intelligence. You will learn the core ideas behind machine learning, explore how models are trained and evaluated, and finish with a small project you can show to others.

Level

Beginner

Duration

6 weeks

Lessons

16 lessons

Certificate

Included

What you'll learn

  • Explain machine learning in plain language
  • Tell supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning apart
  • Evaluate a model with training and test data
  • Reason about bias, privacy and responsible use
  • Plan and present a small AI project

Curriculum

4 modules · 16 lessons · about 3 hours

Module 1What is AI?4 lessons
  • A short history of intelligent machinesvideo12 min
  • Rules versus learningtext10 min
  • Where AI shows up in daily lifepdf10 min
  • Checkpoint: the big picturequiz8 min
Module 2Data and models5 lessons
  • Data is the raw materialvideo12 min
  • Features and labelstext10 min
  • Training, testing and overfittingpdf10 min
  • Hands-on: read a confusion matrixtext10 min
  • Checkpoint: data and modelsquiz8 min
Module 3Responsible AI4 lessons
  • Bias and fairnessvideo12 min
  • Privacy and consenttext10 min
  • Human oversightpdf10 min
  • Checkpoint: responsible usequiz8 min
Module 4Your first AI project3 lessons
  • Choosing a problem worth solvingvideo12 min
  • Planning the buildtext10 min
  • Project: present your ideaproject45 min

Projects & assignments

  • Project: present your idea

Requirements

  • Curiosity and a laptop
  • No programming experience required

Who it's for

  • Students exploring technology
  • Professionals who want AI literacy
  • Makers preparing for the Spark Certified AI Foundations exam
S

Spark Academy

Course material is designed and maintained by the Spark Academy learning team in collaboration with Spark Labs.

Certificate

A Spark Academy certificate of completion is issued when you finish every lesson. Every credential has a public verification page.

Frequently asked questions

Do I get a certificate?

Yes. A Spark Academy certificate of completion is issued when you finish every lesson.

Can I learn at my own pace?

Yes. All lessons are self-paced and your progress is saved automatically.

Is this demo content?

Course material is development data while the academy is being set up.

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