This $500 Workshop Will Teach You Everything About AI

Welcome to the future!

You paid $500 for a three-day “Masterclass on Mastering AI.”

It’s hosted in a lovely co-working space. You get complimentary coffee and cookies.

You, the 40-year-old trying to stay ahead of the game, have shown up in your checked shirt and pants. There are people in hoodies (a few even freshly laundered). You are propelled by hope. For some, it’s a giddy belief that they will finally learn AI.

Your notebook and pen feel quaint in comparison to the one guy who has shown up wearing his Apple Vision.

9:00 AM – Arrival & Icebreakers
You draw your “AI spirit animal” on a Post-it. It’s a dolphin. You have a whole spiel on why you picked that because it’s intelligent and playful! As if that’s your personality when it’s clearly that of a middle-aged man with the energy of a well-fed boa. Except no one asked anyway.

10:00 AM—The Instructor Introduces Himself
The instructor at 22 has lived two full decades less on Earth than you, which makes you a bit skeptical. Your skepticism rises even more when he claims he’s done a master's in prompt engineering.

College is so education 1.0.

…says the headline on one of his slides.

He has a domain registered under gpthefuckouttahere.com, where he asks you to contribute to his project tracking advances in the ‘field of AI’.

11:00 AM – The Prompt is the Product
You’re told that the key to AI mastery is asking the right questions. This feels eerily similar to what you were told in your marketing workshop, marriage counseling, and the ten-day Vipassana retreat you ran out of halfway last year.

There’s a slide deck titled Prompt Like a Pro with example prompts. You write them down, more as interesting ice-breakers when you meet people socially because you’re always out of small talk. You have never felt closer to understanding about Singularity.

12:30 PM – Lunch: Wraps & Dull Chatter

2:00 PM – Hands-on Time
This means opening ChatGPT and asking it to build a startup idea. You watch in awe as it says:

"How about a personalized AI that helps you prompt other AIs?"

Your tentative “ok?” triggers a thirty-second thought process followed by what looks like a high school dissertation.

“This must be a genius!” you mutter as it churns out important-looking words.

Anyway, that was just day 1.

Days 2 and 3 are more of the same, but multiplied. They make you animate your AI spirit animal at some point. Time withers away as you watch the machines generate things all day.

When it’s over, you all get a well-designed Canva certificate. You can now name-drop transformers at cocktail parties and see the room empty rapidly. You are now part of a new WhatsApp group titled “AI Hustlers!!!” It turns into a spam channel for crypto job postings by nightfall.

You tell your wife that you’re now “AI-literate.” You start a LinkedIn post with “Had the pleasure of attending an incredible AI workshop this weekend.” You get 36 likes and a comment from your insecure boss: “Let’s chat Monday.” You're unsure if it's a compliment or a warning.

You consider signing up for another workshop. This one promises Advanced AI Strategy for Leaders.

It's $1000.

It includes a hoodie. And free cocktails.

Could be Worse,

Tyag

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