Rise to the challenge: learning AI

“The first time we went along they had a robot they’d programmed using AI, which was really fun,” Harry says.

“I saw Jack coding scripts for it using AI and got to do some coding myself, too. I’d never seen anything like it before; it was looking around and waving at people – it was really cool.

“I didn’t know much about AI before that, but I’ve been a few more times since then and learnt so much. I’ve tried ChatGPT and got much better at coding. Jack’s really helpful. He lets me try things and if I get stuck he shows me what to do.”

Nelson’s AI Sandbox is a community initiative, established by a philanthropic group, which offers people the ability to trial AI, upskill using it, and get advice and guidance, free of charge.

It was initially the brainchild of Richard Brudvik-Lindner, a teacher at Nelson College, who saw the arrival of ChatGPT and wanted to find a way to help his students understand AI’s capabilities, and harness its good uses. His idea was quickly embraced by a group of co-founders, who helped grow it into a concept to benefit the community as a whole. 

“There are barriers in technology, a digital divide,” says Richard, who’d previously worked for tech giants Microsoft and Nintendo in the US. “Nelson’s already a great place to live but we wanted to help enhance the social fabric and make it more prosperous, equitable, viable and sustainable – and the knowledge and innovation economy is one way to achieve this. People can come into this space to find out more, without any barriers whatsoever.”

What the founders believe to be a world-first initiative has evolved over its two years, moving to a few bases within Nelson’s city centre to maximise accessibility, most recently settling in Halifax Café, opposite the city’s library.

Workshops have been added – some free and sponsored by the Rātā Foundation and some paid-for workshops which have been popular with businesses keen to upskill staff.

Jack and avid volunteer Murray Irvine – who spent four decades working in IT – recently gave a presentation to 14 members of a local Probus group, including guiding them through using ChatGPT, advising on prompting the platform to achieve the best results and working on image manipulation. The visitors also received information about safety, and using the right platforms to best suit their needs.

“If people drop in but don’t have time to stay, there are now tutorials they can work through from home,” Jack says. “One couple recently called in from the West Coast and only had 15 minutes, but I directed them to our online tutorials for things we didn’t have time to cover.” 

Many common questions are very general, including “What is AI?”, Jack says. “Some have wanted to know if an AI summary on a Google search gives trustworthy information and quite a few people are keen to use it for personal projects – genealogy is a really popular one. For that it can more easily search across lots of different scattered information sources. Some people are also using AI to collate information across their life to help them write autobiographies.”

Harry’s mum Mel has also made use of the café drop-in service to learn more about AI herself.

“Having something like this that’s educational and free means the community isn’t going to miss out on gaining this type of knowledge,” she says.

Inspired by his experiences at the Sandbox, Harry is now saving to buy his own small robot – a special ball he can programme to make technical manoeuvres.

“He’s excited he’ll be able to take it along to the Sandbox and do some independent work using AI to programme it,” adds Mel. “Knowing that Jack will be able to help him though if he gets stuck is just fantastic.”