I Took Anthropic's AI Fluency Class
And I think you should, too
To be clear, this was not difficult and the test at the end was only 10 questions. Yes, I know that doing online trainings are boring and nobody wants to sit down and watch videos about AI at the end of the day. However, if you’re worried about loosing your job, or you’ve accepted that you need to become more fluent in AI, this is a great use of your time. I spent about 3 or 4 hours over the course of a week, and completed all their practice exercises. I really enjoyed it because they asked me to reflect, to go deeper, and see how I could use AI as a collaborative partner. I will be adding most of this material to my classes in the fall as I think AI fluency is the new normal. Also, props to Anthropic because they say the material can be accomplished in any LLM and they seem to be the only with any sense of ethics. AI Fluency Training
Dive Club is My New Favorite Resource
So I stumbled up on this video yesterday while I was bored, and within 30 seconds I was saying “Holy shit, they’re right!”. This was in response to the phrase, “Designers, you have no more excuses, you have to start building things with code. You can do it with plain English”. It turns out that they have an entire website of articles and videos that you can check out if you feel like drinking from the firehouse (which is what I will be doing today). Another point of view in the video was that you need to have portfolio pieces that show how you solved a problem; why not just build an app? If this 91 year old grandfather can do it, so can you. If you see yourself as a product designer and you actually want to ship things instead of shuffle Figma files, this is for you.
Claude Artifacts makes us All Vibe Coders
Continuing in the intersection of Claude and and Vibe Coding mens that I’m also going to spend much of the day exploring Claude Artifacts. If you’re just exploring like I am, you don’t need to pay $20-30 a month for any of those vibe-coding tools. Claude Artifacts has a series of templates and starter projects for inspiration and theoretically, you can just describe the app you want to build. To be clear, this is not a app that you’re going to launch and monetize…you would need a real developer for that. However, if you would like to stretch and grow as a designer, I think you should check it out.
“Think bigger than ‘make me flashcards for Spanish,'” the company explains in its announcement blog post. “Try ‘build me a flashcard app.’ One request gets you static study materials. The other creates a shareable tool that generates cards for any topic.”
I first learned about it with this article from Venture Beat. Or, you can just read the Claude blog post about it. I’m going to try and build something today.
If you’re an actual developer, and/or you’re interested in the Vibe Coding scene here in Seattle, you should check out this piece from GeekWire.
I Was Accepted into the WaveSpeedAI Creator Program
It was only three days ago that I was writing about Seedance being the best new thing in AI video…and only ten hours since I filled out an application. They must have like my work, because I now have $20 in credits to use the Seedance Pro model. I know that’s not much, but it still feels really validating, and I’ll try to use it carefully. Expect some exciting video experiments in the next few days. Here are the requirements:
Make sure to tag @WaveSpeedAI in your posts so we can help amplify your work.
To stay active in the program, complete at least 3 pieces of content per month.
If you run out of credits or need any help with your creations, feel free to reach out — We’ll do our best to support you along the way.
Data Visualization in Claude (free) and Gemini (paid)
I ran the same prompt through two different LLMs and received wildly different results in terms of the design. Each one took less than ten minutes and are built with HTML, CSS, and Javascript so I could download and edit if I wanted to. But most of us just want to show off the results. Here’s the prompt:
I'm doing a research project about the water from the Colorado river, the seven states that the river runs through, the diverse populations that need the water, Mexico's role in this, and the contentious issues surround it all. Can you help me create an infographic that is nuanced and balanced, provides historical context, and offers suggestions for a way forward.
Let me know which one you think is better: Claude or Gemini
That’s all for today! Thank you so much for reading and if you have any questions, send me a message. Oh yeah, and please share this newsletter!