Generative AI for Beginners: A Microsoft Course

Core Message

This GitHub repository offers a free, comprehensive 21-lesson course from Microsoft designed to teach beginners the fundamentals of building Generative AI applications. It serves as a structured, hands-on curriculum that takes learners from core concepts to creating functional, real-world AI-powered apps.

Key Information and Structure

The course is broken down into 21 distinct lessons, which are a mix of conceptual learning and practical building exercises. Key topics covered include:

• Foundations: Introduction to Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), responsible AI practices, and the fundamentals of prompt engineering.
• Application Development: Practical guides on building text and image generation apps, chat applications, and search tools using embeddings and vector databases.
• Advanced Techniques: Deeper dives into concepts like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), function calling for external integrations, AI agents, and fine-tuning models.
• Ecosystem and Operations: Lessons cover working with open-source models from Hugging Face, Mistral, and Meta, as well as crucial topics like UX design, security, and the Generative AI application lifecycle (LLMOps).

Each lesson provides written material, a short introductory video, and code samples in both Python and TypeScript, supporting services like Azure OpenAI and the OpenAI API.

Conclusion and Takeaway

This is a valuable, self-paced educational resource for any developer looking to gain practical skills in Generative AI. It provides a complete learning path, from theory to deployment considerations, making it an ideal starting point for building sophisticated AI solutions. The course is well-supported with code, available in multiple languages, and fostered by a developer community.

Mentoring question

Based on the course outline, which specific lesson, such as ‘Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)’ or ‘Integrating with Function Calling,’ addresses a current challenge or opportunity in your work or personal projects?

Source: https://github.com/microsoft/generative-ai-for-beginners