Making Magic with Generative AI

Generative AI has elevated AI into the mainstream and made it the topic of dinner-table conversations everywhere. Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT enable software to do things that were never before possible, from answering natural-language questions with natural-language responses to generating charts and graphs from verbal descriptions. Image generators such as Stable Diffusion turn text into eye-popping images. Are you curious to know what generative AI is, how it works, and how to use it to infuse AI into your apps and business processes?

Bring your laptop and take a deep dive into generative AI in this hands-on workshop. Learn how to put LLMs over documents and databases, build state-of-the-art virtual assistants, implement zero-shot image classifiers, and more.

Prerequisites:

First, you’ll need an OpenAI API key. If you don’t have one, you can get one by creating an OpenAI account at https://platform.openai.com/signup and then visiting the API Keys page at https://platform.openai.com/account/api-keys, This is SUPER IMPORTANT because we’ll using OpenAI’s state-of-the-art LLMs. You may have to provide a credit card to create an API key, but the spend will be minimal – no more than 5 or 10 Euros. If OpenAI offers you free credits, accept them!

Second, you need a laptop with Python 3.11 or higher, SQLite 3, and the following Python packages installed:

• flask
• pillow
• openai
• torch
• transformers
• chromadb
• pypdf

These packages can be installed with pip commands (e.g., pip install flask) or with conda commands if you use Anaconda. Here are some helpful installation notes:

• If installing chromadb generates a “Failed to build chroma-hnswlib” error, go to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/ and install the Visual Studio build tools. Then open a new command prompt or terminal window and try again.
• On Windows, some of these Python packages require the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable DLL at run-time. Chances are it’s already installed on your laptop, but if it’s not, you can install it from https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe.
• The SQLite Web site is light on details for installing SQLite 3. A better explanation can be found at https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sqlite/sqlite_installation.htm. If you're installing on 64-bit Windows, download the win64 zip files rather than the win32 zip files.