Practical AI

Artificial intelligence is already in your hands. The question is whether you'll use it with judgment - or just push the buttons.

Practical AI, Student Edition is a classroom field guide to working with AI: the thinking behind it, not a list of features that will be obsolete by next term. Built around a single durable lens - judgment, honesty, scrutiny, and friction - every chapter pairs plain-English explanation with hands-on "Try This" practice and review questions, so you learn to question the tool rather than trust it blindly.

You'll move from your first real conversation with AI to more advanced work - writing and editing, research and reasoning, working with data and code, and building practical workflows - always with the human kept firmly in the loop. Each chapter ends with a summary, key terms to define in your own words, and questions that check your understanding.

Written for real classrooms and self-motivated learners alike, this is the student's core text in the three-edition Practical AI line (Student, Annotated Instructor's, and Independent Learner's editions), designed to be used together. The technology will keep changing; the judgment it teaches will last.