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AI 101 Class Materials

Thank you for attending our AI 101 class! Use this webpage to reference what you learned, and access class slides, useful tools, and other resources.

Have any questions? Email us at events@beta.nyc!

Link to Slides: (to be updated)

Note: these slides also contain information on how to adjust settings within ChatGPT & Claude!

AI Tools We Explored

  • ChatGPT – A versatile conversational AI from OpenAI that is excellent for brainstorming, drafting text, coding, and general problem-solving.
  • Claude – An AI assistant by Anthropic known for its nuanced, natural writing style, coding, and ability to analyze long documents accurately.

Additional Tools to Explore

Be persistent in adjusting your personalization and privacy settings before jumping in!

  • Gemini – Google’s AI assistant that integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace tools like Docs and Gmail.
  • NotebookLM -A personalized AI research assistant from Google that answers questions and synthesizes information only from the specific documents and notes you upload to it.
  • Perplexity – An AI-powered search engine that acts like a highly advanced research assistant, providing direct answers backed by web citations and source links.
  • Decoded Futures Prompt Cookbook – helps create ready-to-use, structured prompts to help get the best possible results when talking to AI chatbots.
  • Humanize AI – A tool designed to rephrase AI-generated text so that it reads more naturally and resembles human writing (often used to bypass automated AI detectors).
  • Adobe Acrobat’s AI Assistant – A built-in PDF tool that quickly summarizes documents, finds specific information, and answers questions based on your file’s text.
  • Canva – A user-friendly design platform equipped with AI features (“Magic Studio”) that can automatically generate images, presentations, and text for visual projects.

NYC tools that feature AI components

  • FloodGen – A BetaNYC Lab Tool that uses AI to generate images of potential flooding scenarios to raise awareness, bolster community preparedness, and support local governments’ resiliency strategies.
  • Civic AI Tools – An open-source project that connects AI assistants to government open data, asks plain-language questions, and gets answers grounded in public data.
  • Block Party Resolutions Archive – Platform that makes local policy information accessible and byte-sized, with a weekly email of community board meeting synopsis and transcript data (currently focuses on Brooklyn Community Board 3).
  • citymeetings.nyc – Makes NYC’s lengthy public proceedings easy to navigate for engaged citizens and professionals by transcribing meetings and breaking them down into short, useful summaries on the record.
  • Housing Court Answers – Educates and empowers NYC tenants and small homeowners through Information Tables and a hotline.
  • Reclamo AI – Developed by Justicia Lab, Reclamo AI is a multilingual digital assistant that helps workers understand their rights, identify workplace justice issues, and connect with advocates.
  • Depositron – helps tenants recover their security deposits through generated letters to their landlords, helping to address the issue of illegally withheld security deposits.
  • Civic Tech Field Guide – Website that tracks civic, democratic, and ethical AI projects with a wide-ranging collection of examples of people using AI for public interest goals (including work to prevent harms from AI itself).
  • Vital City – Tools featured in the Experiments Gallery were built by institutions, small teams, and individuals, with the help of emerging AI tools.

If you know of others we should add, email us at events@beta.nyc.

AI Resources

Further Reading on NYC AI Guidance

Join the BetaNYC Community!

Upcoming Events – Find all of our upcoming events here! https://www.beta.nyc/events 

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BetaNYC Slack – Connect with other New Yorkers interested in public interest technology and Open Data. http://slack.beta.nyc 

BetaNYC Videos – https://www.youtube.com/betanyc  

CityCamp NYC – https://www.citycamp.nyc

CityCamp NYC is unconference: a participant-driven gathering where attendees collaboratively shape the agenda together. Facilitated by BetaNYC, the event aims to foster hands-on collaboration and creative problem-solving across various sectors, exploring the intersection of democracy, civil society, government operations, and more.

NYC Open Data Ambassadors  – Sign up for monthly virtual classes taught by volunteer Open Data Ambassadors at https://www.nyc.gov/discoveropendata. You’ll learn about NYC Open Data, its history, how it works, how to navigate the portal to sift through data, and the tools it powers. The Open Data Ambassadors program is a collaboration between NYC Open Data and BetaNYC.

Open Data Week

Open Data Week is an annual, week-long festival of Open Data every March. Watch videos from previous festivals at https://archive.open-data.nyc. Sign up to receive festival announcements at https://opendataweek.nyc/newsletter! 

NYC School of Data – https://schoolofdata.nyc 

School of Data is an annual community conference that demystifies the policies and practices around open data, technology, and service design. You can find sessions from prior years here: https://schoolofdata.nyc/about/#videos 

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