Hi everyone,
I have been exploring AI for some time now learning about neural networks transformers & other exciting topics While the concepts are great in theory. I am ready to actually build something useful but not sure where to start.
I completed a Generative AI Course which helped me understand the basics & some advanced ideas Now.I want to apply that knowledge to real-world scenarios Maybe something in healthcare education customer support or even a simple tool that automates everyday tasks.
If you have made the jump from learning to building what was your first real ;AI project How did you decide on it. Which tools or frameworks did you use And looking back what would you do differently.
Thank you.
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Dear @Sophiah,
Welcome to the Community!
We’re excited to have you here. Feel free to ask questions, share ideas, or discuss challenges.
I think you should take https://www.coursera.org/specializations/machine-learning-introduction
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Keep Learning AI with DeepLearning.AI - Girijesh
Hi Sophiah,
I’d say go for it. Your first project (or first few projects) might be messy or full of mistakes, but you can only improve and get better from the actual experience of building, iterating, and trying different things out.
One thing is true, you’ll never finish learning. And that feeling of not starting a project until you arrive will always be there (at least for me).
What has helped me so far is tinkering with all or most of the different AI tools for building (like Replit, Devin, Lovable, v0, …) and seeing what sticks. Currently I’ve settled with using Cursor and Claude Code, but I use Claude Code more often these days.
To some extent I have the opposite of your problem, where I can build almost anything (any idea I can think of) but lack the deep understanding for some of the underlying mechanisms (the how and why). But building has only made me realize what’s missing and truly important to learn through structured courses/materials versus what to automate with AI —i.e., it has helped me realize what the deep competencies that can help me steer AI Agents to build better are.
Learning and Building are two complementary parts of personal growth/progress. I like to think of excess in either direction - without paying attention to the other - as “tutorial hel“ and “building hel“. Though you can learn a lot from building, and “building hel” also includes building forever without selling (which includes sharing, talking to users, etc).
I hope you found this perspective helpful.
And good luck as you figure out the approach that works best for you.
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Note: Sorry for my misspelling of the h-word. I had to remove an L because the word is censored.
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Honestly just build anything! Don’t think about it too much.
For tools and framework, my first project related to AI I used langchain, streamlit(frontend), python for the whole AI workflow, gemma API for integrating an LLM.
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Hi, Sophia
You can apply to UpWork projects.
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