One of the biggest tech giants, Google, is rolling out a roadmap consisting of multiple free generative AI courses. Ever since Microsoft and OpenAI took advantage of the AI race by featuring Bing AI and ChatGPT, Google has been trying to keep up with the competition. One of the first efforts is Google’s own generative AI model called Bard. Now the company is looking into the future of jobs in the age of artificial intelligence and featuring courses that can prepare people to become AI experts.
With new AI tools that are updated daily, a lot of people are concerned about the future of their careers, as well as whether their current jobs will become obsolete in a matter of years, if not months.
Google’s new career path which consists of 10 courses is supposed to educate laymen about generative AI, large language models (LLMs), and prompt engineering to prepare them to work in careers that focus on process automation and improving productivity with AI.
In a new blog post, Google featured seven of its free generative AI courses, while three more were added shortly after. The courses break down all the important terminology including machine learning, cloud computing, LLMs, encoder-decoders, and other important AI concepts.
It’s worth mentioning that while eight of the AI courses are free, the other two cost 1 credit each. The best part is that no courses require any prior knowledge and can be completed by people without tech-related background.
Google also featured a course for its machine learning training platform called Vertex AI which allows users to build and deploy machine learning projects, for 3 credits. It’s also the final course (quest) of the learning path the company rolled out.
While these courses likely won’t advance users to a full-time AI job role, it’s expected to provide a foundation to obtain more advanced knowledge and skillset necessary to start a career in data and AI. Generative AI is just a small fraction of the entire AI field, and understanding how generative AI and LLMs work can give insights into other AI systems and prepare for new career roles and the next generation of AI.
Additionally, Google may be offering all these new free generative AI courses because the demand for data- and AI-driven job roles is expected to jump. According to The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is expected that there will be a 36% increase in data science-like roles in the next ten years, with roughly 13,500 new job openings for data scientists every year.
With that in mind, Google’s free generative AI courses are a step in the right direction, if the AI race accelerates and we see total job automation in the future.
