Today marks the official start of my journey into AI. After thinking about it, planning, and figuring out how I want to approach this, I finally took the first concrete steps.
📌 Registered for Helsinki University's Elements of AI
I signed up for the Elements of AI course by Helsinki University and MinnaLearn, [https://www.elementsofai.com/] a structured introduction to artificial intelligence. It offers ECTS credits, so I figured—why not? More importantly, it gives me a clear roadmap for understanding AI systematically rather than randomly consuming information.
🤖 My Study Buddy: ChatGPT
Since I don’t have a real-world study buddy (yet), I’m treating ChatGPT as my AI learning partner. It’s been an interesting experience so far, and we already had our first debate:
🔍 AI or Not? The GPS Navigation Debate
One of the exercises asked whether a GPS navigation system that finds the fastest route is AI. My initial answer was no—after all, shortest-path algorithms like Dijkstra’s algorithm have existed long before AI. However, ChatGPT argued that modern GPS systems (like Google Maps) use real-time traffic data, machine learning, and predictive modeling, which introduce elements of AI. Since I am using Google Maps in my car, I thought that the correct answer for me would be "yes", and in the end, it turned out to be correct. Truth be told, it was a tricky question, because if a GPS system does not take into account live traffic data feed, then the answer would be no, since finding the fastest route would involve just an algorithm, and not AI.
📖 Quick Takeaways from Section 1 of Chapter 1: What is AI?
The first section of Chapter 1: What is AI? made one thing clear—AI is not easy to define. Many things we consider AI today may not be classified as AI in the future. However, two key concepts stand out:
- Autonomy: AI can perform tasks without constant human guidance.
- Adaptivity: AI can learn and improve over time based on experience.
These two characteristics help distinguish AI from simple automation.
At the end of the section, I completed an exercise where I had to classify different technologies as AI or not. I got 7 out of 7 correct, which was a great way to confirm that I understood the material.
💡 What’s Next?
I have already asked ChatGPT to create a learning program for me—something I’ll go into in a future post. For now, my focus is on completing the first step of the learning program which is: Elements of AI and making steady progress.
One section down—many more to go. 🚀
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