Your first conversation
~ min read
30-second summary
- Open a free AI (claude.ai, chatgpt.com, gemini.google.com). For your first time it doesn’t matter which one.
- Type a prompt, hit send, the answer appears word by word. It’s a conversation, like any normal back-and-forth.
- No need to “close” anything: just close the tab. Conversations stay saved in your account.
- If the answer is too long, vague, or unclear: tell the AI and it redoes it. It doesn’t take offense and doesn’t tire.
This is the lesson where you actually open an Short for 'artificial intelligence'. Here we mean conversational AIs like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. . Little theory: you’ll find a guided exercise to copy and paste, and by the time you finish reading you’ll know how to interact with it.
Where you open the AI
Section titled “Where you open the AI”You can pick one of these (or another that you already use). All are free for basic use, you just need to sign up with an email.
- claude.ai: the AI from Anthropic. Strong at writing and articulate reasoning.
- chatgpt.com: ChatGPT, from OpenAI. The most well-known, solid for general tasks.
- gemini.google.com: Gemini, from Google. Integrates well with the other Google services if you use them.
For your first time it doesn’t make much difference which you pick. The concepts you learn here work everywhere.
What to expect
Section titled “What to expect”When you open a conversational AI, you see a text bar where you write. You type a What you write to the AI to get an answer: a question, a request, an instruction, a paragraph of context. , press send, wait a few seconds, and the answer appears one word after another (as if it were typing live). Then you can write another reply, and so on: it’s a conversation like any normal back and forth of messages.
A conversation can last one question or a hundred. You don’t have to “close” anything: when you’ve got what you wanted, just close the browser tab. Conversations stay saved in your account: next time you come back, you’ll find them all in the side panel.
Try it now, with a guide
Section titled “Try it now, with a guide”I’ve prepared a prompt that gives the AI the role of a patient tutor. It introduces itself, asks you for a topic of any kind, helps you turn it into a clear request, and shows you live the difference between a vague question and one with context.
How to do it: copy the prompt below, open your chosen AI, paste it into the same bar where you’d write a normal message, and press send. From there it’s a conversation like any other. No prep needed.
What to do if something feels off
Section titled “What to do if something feels off”The most common situations.
- The answer is too long: tell the AI. Write “shorter” or “give it to me in half the words”, press send. It redoes it shorter.
- You don’t understand the answer because it uses words you don’t know: tell the AI. Write “explain it in plain English, no jargon” or “explain it like to a twelve-year-old”. It redoes it at a more accessible level.
- The answer doesn’t match what you wanted: rephrase. Explain better what you needed, or give an example of an answer that would work for you.
- The AI is making things up: it happens. For your first round it isn’t a problem, but in the lesson When to trust it (and when not) we’ll see how to spot it and what to do.
Check what you understood
Section titled “Check what you understood”What comes next
Section titled “What comes next”- How does the AI “understand”?: a look behind the scenes, to grasp why it answers the way it does and why every now and then it gets things wrong.
- When to trust it (and when not): spotting when it’s making things up and how to verify.