Module 1: AI Foundations
What AI/ML actually is, types of models, and when to use what. Get the full experience — 6 lessons, hands-on examples, and real depth. This is exactly what the paid course looks like.
Overview
What you'll learn
- Understand the core difference between traditional programming and machine learning
- Identify and explain the major types of ML models and their use cases
- Evaluate when AI is the right solution vs. simpler approaches
- Understand key concepts like training, inference, overfitting, and generalization
- Navigate the modern AI landscape with confidence
Lesson Content
What Machine Learning Actually Is
The AI Model Taxonomy
# The practical model selection flowchart in code
def select_model(problem_type, data_type, dataset_size):
"""Simple model selection heuristic."""
# Rule 1: Tabular/structured data
if data_type == "tabular":
if dataset_size < 1000:
return "LogisticRegression / RandomForest"
else:
return "XGBoost / LightGBM"
# Rule 2: Text data
if data_type == "text":
if dataset_size < 100:
return "Few-shot with LLM (GPT-4, Claude)"
elif dataset_size < 10000:
return "Fine-tuned BERT / Sentence Transformers"
else:
return "Fine-tuned LLM or custom Transformer"
# Rule 3: Image data
if data_type == "image":
if dataset_size < 500:
return "Pre-trained ViT / ResNet with transfer learning"
else:
return "Fine-tuned vision model"
# Rule 4: Time series
if data_type == "time_series":
if problem_type == "forecasting":
return "Prophet / XGBoost with lag features"
else:
return "Temporal Fusion Transformer"
return "Start with a baseline, iterate"
# Example usage
print(select_model("classification", "tabular", 50000))
# Output: "XGBoost / LightGBM"
print(select_model("generation", "text", 50))
# Output: "Few-shot with LLM (GPT-4, Claude)"This heuristic captures how experienced practitioners think about model selection. The key insight: match the model to your data type and size. Don't use a sledgehammer (GPT-4) when a screwdriver (XGBoost) works better.
Training, Evaluation, and the Bias-Variance Tradeoff
import numpy as np
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
from sklearn.metrics import classification_report
# Simulate a dataset
np.random.seed(42)
X = np.random.randn(1000, 10) # 1000 samples, 10 features
y = (X[:, 0] + X[:, 1] * 2 > 0).astype(int) # Binary target
# Step 1: Split your data (ALWAYS do this first)
X_train, X_temp, y_train, y_temp = train_test_split(
X, y, test_size=0.3, random_state=42
)
X_val, X_test, y_val, y_test = train_test_split(
X_temp, y_temp, test_size=0.5, random_state=42
)
print(f"Train: {len(X_train)}, Val: {len(X_val)}, Test: {len(X_test)}")
# Train: 700, Val: 150, Test: 150
# Step 2: Train and evaluate
model = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=100, random_state=42)
model.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Step 3: Check for overfitting
train_acc = model.score(X_train, y_train)
val_acc = model.score(X_val, y_val)
print(f"Train accuracy: {train_acc:.3f}")
print(f"Val accuracy: {val_acc:.3f}")
# If train >> val, you're overfitting!
# Step 4: Final evaluation (only do this once!)
print("\nFinal Test Results:")
print(classification_report(y_test, model.predict(X_test)))This demonstrates the fundamental ML workflow: split data, train, check for overfitting by comparing train vs. validation performance, and only touch the test set for final evaluation. The gap between train and validation accuracy tells you if you're overfitting.
The Modern AI Stack
When to Use AI (And When Not To)
Key Takeaways
- ML learns rules from data instead of being programmed explicitly
- Match the model to your data type: XGBoost for tabular, Transformers for text, CNNs for images
- Always split your data into train/validation/test — never evaluate on training data
- Start with the simplest approach (API call) and add complexity only when needed
- More data beats fancier models almost every time
- The best ML engineers know when NOT to use ML
Exercises
Model Selection Challenge
You're given four business problems. For each one, identify: (a) whether ML is the right approach, (b) if so, which type of model to use, and (c) what data you'd need. 1. **Email routing**: Automatically route incoming support emails to the right department (billing, technical, sales) 2. **Inventory alerts**: Send an alert when warehouse stock drops below a threshold 3. **Content moderation**: Flag potentially harmful user-generated content on a social platform 4. **Dynamic pricing**: Adjust product prices based on demand, competition, and time of day
Overfitting Detective
You train a sentiment analysis model and observe these results: - Training accuracy: 99.2% - Validation accuracy: 71.8% - Test accuracy: 70.1% Write a diagnosis explaining: (a) what's happening, (b) three specific techniques to fix it, and (c) what accuracy you'd realistically target. Then implement one of your fixes in code using scikit-learn.
AI Feasibility Assessment
Your company wants to build an AI system that reads legal contracts and extracts key terms (parties, dates, obligations, penalties). Write a one-page feasibility assessment covering: 1. Is AI the right approach? Why? 2. What type of model/approach would you recommend? 3. What data would you need? How much? 4. What are the risks and failure modes? 5. What's your recommended phased approach (start simple, iterate)? Be specific and practical — this should read like a real internal memo.
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Module 2: LLMs & Prompt Engineering
How LLMs work, prompt design patterns, chain-of-thought, and few-shot techniques
Module 3: Building with AI APIs
OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source models — API integration patterns for production
Module 4: RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
Vector databases, embeddings, and building RAG pipelines that actually work
Module 5: Fine-Tuning
When and how to fine-tune, dataset preparation, training, and evaluation
Module 6: AI Agents
Agent architectures, tool use, and multi-agent systems
Module 7: Evaluation & Safety
Benchmarking, red-teaming, guardrails, and responsible AI
Module 8: Production Deployment
Scaling, monitoring, cost optimization, and MLOps basics
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