Many of us have a 'goal' that we want to reach. My current goal is to educate others on Blockchain, 'Generative A.I.', and Web 3. Why? Because its all a new space that has many nuances and at the time (3 years ago) I felt I could be a source of knowledge. Of course now everybody is knowledgeable about these subjects and the 'job' aspect is filled with many others who know just as much or (usually) more than I do.
So what can I do now? Well, I have a couple of notebooks full of notes, thoughts, and concepts that, while probably obsolete now, might still be of value to somebody. If I can help educate or teach somebody ONE(1) thing than I've reached my goal.
Blockchain Notes
Looking at my Blockchain notes now, I realize I got caught in the trap that many others do when starting in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency.
'Buy NFT's and resale for later!', 'Buy this coin and wait till it 100x's', 'Get into this Blockchain before it explodes in price and sell!'.
It's all sort of ridiculous how much the space felt like a 'Gold Rush' with everybody trying to hit a pocket of success and live off of the findings.
Thankfully though, my 'FOMO' broke and I actually acquired some knowledge such as: What were the actual purposes of a 'Blockchain' 'Cryptocurrency/coin', and 'NFTs/digital assets'. Why were they valued by others? What was a 'layer 2'? and why the hell were 'gas' prices so damn high?
I mean, there wasn't a guide book for these topics (yet) and it seriously did feel like 'the blind leading the blind' in this space. I did create some 'guide ebooks' on Amazon to try and earn from the hype. (I realize now I probably need to remove them or update them!)
It's ridiculous reading my notes(Read the white paper before getting involved!) about 'upcoming' projects and checking out the current status of many of them. Dapps that were made for one thing and either turned into something else or left unfinished as the hype surrounding Blockchain and Cryptocurrency began to fade and the 'snake oil' that many bought but quickly realized was garbage began to be discovered.
I began to understand that Blockchains work well when their participants truly understand and believe in the purpose that the Blockchain was created for.
- Ethereum was built to test out Blockchain capabilities,
- Layer-2's were made to help the efficiency of a foundation Blockchain or transference of assets,
- Stablecoins were made to protect against the volatility of price fluctuations,
- Wrapped coins made sure the value of a coin was accepted and wouldn't 'devalue' as it were when it transferred from exchange to exchange or Blockchain to Blockchain,
- Coins are the Blockchains currency while Tokens were the dApps 'currency'
- Correlation of Cryptocurrency WAS often based on Bitcoin
- Don't trust exchanges to keep 'Cryptocurrency' safe, instead either hold your keys or store the crypto in a wallet
- 'Swap'ping Crypto is expensive and requires the individual to understand what is actually taking place
- Research every Blockchain, cryptocurrency, token, decentralized application, and digital asset before deciding to join
- Don't click random links(Obvious)
- Don't fall for the hype
- Don't focus on the 'price' but the 'utility' of what projects offer
Finally! Some good bits of knowledge that are universally acknowledged. I felt I had a good baseline to help others if they approached me for questions on joining (almost) any Blockchain.
Though many were only interested in the 'stock' price they saw on exchanges and 'crypto' portfolios. They saw prices at '$0.01' on many 'cryptocurrencies' and the spike of it going to '$0.10' to '$1.00'. "If I had X amount when that happens again then I will be rich!" It's tough to break many of that mindset. Not many were interested in the 'foundation' aspect that Blockchain takes to eventually 'earn'. By the time I managed to show them the other side of things, 'Cryptocurrency' and 'Blockchain' were now a fad that had burned many and garnered no/negative interest when brought up. Boo!
My notes on 'Generative A.I.'
I ignored Generative A.I. when it first became available to the public but as an entrepreneur I had to learn it to be aware of the changes to businesses and jobs. People were scrambling to understand 'Generative A.I.' and its capabilities, many companies were hiring 'prompters' or 'Prompt engineers' to 'talk' to the Generative A.I. to train it for their company and produce results that could fast track a lot of the struggles in business.
'Prompting' became a title in job searches everywhere and I figured I may as well learn as much as I can to provide guidance and give a proper explanation to any who were worried about their profession.
Oh, many thought the beginning of 'Generative A.I.' was the start of Terminator or The Matrix, but they weren't even close. Generative A.I. spouted out a dictionary of words that would fit the context of your request but it lacked depth and that unique 'voice' that human writing seems to have. 'Generative A.I.' required 'training' or examples of a topic to fine tune the output to achieve results that sounded close to a knowledgeable response.
Thankfully there were more informed people here than in the 'Blockchain' space so results provided excellent resources to learn from. The various methods to 'train' the 'Generative A.I.' required processes that had me filling pages to ensure I didn't forget how to do it.
Getting complex with the 'Generative A.I.' was an eventuality to get the best outputs possible. (Coders had it easy in this regard!). After reviewing some 'free' courses (Google and Learnprompt), watching informative videos and guides (allaboutAI, various Youtube creators,) I had a solid foundation of notes to share:
- Keep 'training' concise, give some examples of the subject before informing the 'A.I.' its assumed role and how it's writing should sound (role attitude/emotion)
- Tell the 'A.I.' what platform format it is generating for
- Properly structure out a question but keeping it plain for longer prompts helps the 'A.I.' absorb the information
- State goals and intention for the 'Generative A.I.' so it can work towards completing them
- Figuring out ways to cut the response short while training is important to save 'tokens'
- The more knowledgeable about a subject you are the easier it will be to see where the 'A.I.' needs fine tuning
That last note actually helped me understand the situation between 'workers' and 'people using A.I. to simulate workers'. Workers who have years of experience will definitely get a lot more out of a 'Generative A.I.' than the average 'prompter' imitating an experienced profession worker. Workers in an industry know all the terminology and nuances that come with being in that field whereas an average 'prompter' would have to look up the 'terms' but might not understand the full meaning without the 'nuance'.
Once the 'Generative A.I,' is trained to fulfill a role, an experienced worker can almost instantly correct any error, mistake, or technique the 'Generative A.I.' spits out. This example could be used for text AND image generation A.I.
Here are some notes I wrote concerning 'People & A.I.'
- People (Almost always) can tell if a person created a response/image or an A.I. generated it
- Empathy and Authenticity are strictly human and CANNOT be replicated by A.I.
- 'Generative A.I.' may hit a glass ceiling if left to 'unexperienced prompters' who don't properly understand the field they are telling the 'Generative A.I.' to role fulfill
- Workers who began utilizing 'Generative A.I.' in their work were able to progress much faster than average prompters attempting similar work
- Having an 'A.I. Policy' is critical when using 'Generative A.I.'
- Create as much of the original piece(Art, Text, Speech, Idea,' as possible before throwing it into 'Generative A.I.'
This aspect of 'Generative A.I.' is definitely a struggle point for many workers/creators but seeing the optimism of the ones that took the intuitive to understand this 'scary new element' in the work place brings hope and power to those who meet this 'A.I.' challenge head on.
Replacing entire departments with a 'Generative A.I.' may lead to a point where every customer sees the same response for every question, query, and request.
Don't fall for the hype!
That's the end of this 'post'! I am compiling all my notes, tidbits of knowledge and information onto 1-3 posts on hive. My 'Goal' is to take snippets of each article and 'repurpose' it on my Blog(Which already has some of these notes) and possibly Medium(Though I'm checking if keeping the subscription is worth it).
I'll edit in the appropriate links later.
I want to thank you If you've read this post for going through my ramblings and stories. Like I said at the top, my goal is to share my knowledge and to educate others on these specific subjects.