Blog Series: Exploring the Power of AI

Blog Entry 1: Why Learn AI and Why Trust This Blog

Introduction

This blog has a long history of informing technical people about goings-on, particularly in the world of Microsoft Dynamics. I appreciate the followers and support, including the giants in the field who contributed, commented, or gently corrected, as well as everybody who hit subscribe or like and made my day!

It’s time now to iterate to artificial intelligence, as the world heads inexorably toward the next huge leaps and bounds with the machine. This does not exclude Dynamics, as Copilot is rolled out with every major update and most minor ones.

Why Learn AI

Never in my memory has a new technology swept markets across the board so rapidly. No matter your field, specialty, interest, AI has probably already seized it and is starting to be leveraged there. Software updates include AI capabilities that we should learn to properly use the software. AI offers us advantages including time savings, analytical and creative gifts, and overall efficiency. If you ‘re reading this, you’re probably curious about how AI can help you. While it’s not a critical skill at this point, the ability to use large language models effectively will increase in demand.

Why Trust This Blog

You’ve perhaps been reading this blog since 2011! I call them as I see them and I
laugh till I cry. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from New York University many moons ago, an MBA in Information Systems from the same school, and was technical for decades (programmer, developer, technical consultant).

My artificial intelligence chops are younger. 😊 I joined an internal “ChatGPT hackathon” when ChatGPT 3.0 was the latest version (yipes!) in January 2023 when there was a call out for volunteers to lead a workstream to increase our team’s knowledge in generative pretrained AI. (Shout out to Marlina for leading this!) Starting in October 2023, I’ve taken three courses offered by the amazing Steve Little https://aigenealogyinsights.com/). I achieved two Microsoft AI certifications: AI-900 and AI-102.

I readily disclose that I am a proud employee of Microsoft, but this is not an official Microsoft blog. I encourage you to try Copilot but will be offering exercises around many different AI tools so that you get familiar with the vast array that’s out there.

I subscribe to several AI newsletters and podcasts, and am committed to providing accurate, up to date, and unbiased information.

I disclose my use of AI as a helper, and I take full responsibility for the content myself.

You may have seen me speak at DynamicsCon Live 2024 in Denver CO in May. I emphasized how we are starting to integrate artificial intelligence tools into our content creation while still maintaining guardrails. I fully believe that this is a critical technology.

But how? I have been as intimidated as anyone by this new technology and how to get started! To that end, I’ll be offering up practice exercises as use cases to help us all see that the learning curve is perhaps not so steep as it appears at first. Give it a shot!

Come along on yet another learning journey with us! Subscribe today!

Credit: AI (ChatGPT) created the outline for the blog series for me. I wrote the entries. AI (DALL-E) also created the banner image for this blog.