Generative AI for Managers

OVERVIEW This course is designed to equip managers and founders with the tools needed to excel in a future of generative AI. Students are expected to participate in seminar-style discussion, hands-on labs, and a series of lectures. This isn’t a technical course, but it’s intended to give students an understanding for those managing developer teams all the way to the executive level. Topics covered include LLMs, image generation, emerging generative AI use cases, the business, economic, and strategic implications of generative AI, prompt engineering, fine tuning, business case analysis, and the VC / startup landscape. CLASS TIMES AND LOCATIONS ● Tuesday & Thursday, 4:00PM - 5:30PM, E51-325 ● There are 2 Friday recitations for labs 1 and 2 (see schedule). Time and room TBD What the course is not: ● A coding course to learn algorithms (see 6.5940 & 6.S896) ● Law and ethics for AI or data (see 15.622 & 15.630) ● Economics of information goods (see 15.567) What the course is: ● A deep dive into generative AI, how it works, its use cases, and business implications ● A mix of lectures, discussion seminars, and hands-on labs ● Some hands-on labs with focus on prompting LLMs and diffusion models (e.g. Dall-e) as well as creating custom GPTs - we may do some fine-tuning time-permitting. PREREQUISITES There are no prerequisites for the class, however there are resource requirements you must prepare prior to the first day of class. ● Download Adobe Creative Cloud (free for MIT students) ● Purchase a GPT-4 subscription (in lieu of us having any physical course materials you must set up GPT-4, the premium version for $20 for February and March) ● Ensure Google Bard is working on your laptop (free); have a Google account setup ● Also create a free Claude and Perplexity account