Optional: Try a large language model (LLM) tool

In this task, you will be asked to use an artificial intelligence (AI) tool and ask it questions. ChatGPT and Bard are large language models (LLMs) that act like a chatbot. You can have conversations with them, and you can use them to get information.

They can also write code, produce text for a specific purpose, and even do things like write recipes. To understand how this works, you can use what is known as a prompt (a question) to ask the model itself.

Let’s have a go!

Note that AI tools are not managed by FutureLearn. Interacting with the content may require or result in personal data transfer to this external website; FutureLearn advises you to check the external website’s privacy policy before use.

Access the LLM tool

• To experiment with a LLM, you will need an account (it’s free to sign up).
• On your computer or smartphone, please choose either ChatGPT or Google’s Bard.
• Once you have signed up, all you have to do is type a question in the ‘Send a message’ box and click the arrow to send it.

Ask the LLM what it can do

• Ask ChatGPT (or Bard) what it can do, and how it works. A prompt you could use is: Please explain how you work, using simple language which is accessible to a person who is not a specialist in AI.
• Try a prompt to make it get a bit creative: Explain the kind of things you can do as a rhyming poem.
• Write your prompt into the ‘Send a message’ box, click the arrow on the right and it will generate a response.

Experiment with the LLM

• Spend a bit of time ‘playing’ with the AI tool to get an idea of the kinds of things it can do.

In the next task, we will look at how to write prompts to get the answer you are looking for.