Ask HN: How to teach agentic AI? Please share your experience

9 points by morisil 1 year ago | 9 comments

I started teaching agentic AI at our cooperative (Berlin). It is a one day intense workshop where I:

1. Introduce IntelliJ IDEA IDE and tools 2. Showcase my Unix-omnipotent educational open source AI agent called Claudine (which can basically do what Claude Code can do, but I already provided it in October 2024) 3. Go through glossary of AI-related terms 4. Explore demo code snippets gradually introducing more and more abstract concepts 5. Work together on ideas brought by participants

In theory attendees of the workshop should learn enough to be able to build an agent like Claudine themselves. During this workshop I am introducing my open source AI development stack (Kotlin multiplatform SDK, based on Anthropic API). Many examples are using OPENRNDR creative coding framework, which makes the whole process more playful. I'm OPENRNDR contributor and I often call it "an operating system for media art installations". This is why the workshop is called "Agentic AI & Creative Coding". Here is the list of demos:

- Demo010HelloWorld.kt - Demo015ResponseStreaming.kt - Demo020Conversation.kt - Demo030ConversationLoop.kt - Demo040ToolsInTheHandsOfAi.kt - Demo050OpenCallsExtractor.kt - Demo061OcrKeyFinancialMetrics.kt - Demo070PlayMusicFromNotes.kt - Demo090ClaudeAiArtist.kt - Demo090DrawOnMonaLisa.kt - Demo100AffirmationMirror.kt - Demo110TruthTerminal.kt - Demo120AiAsComputationalArtist.kt

And I would like to extend it even further.

Each code example is annotated with "What you will learn" comments which I split into 3 categories:

- AI Dev: techniques, e.g. how to maintain token window, optimal prompt engineering - Cognitive Science: philosophical and psychological underpinning, e.g. emergent theory of mind and reasoning, the importance of role-playing - Kotlin: in this case the language is just the simplest possible vehicle for delivering other abstract AI development concepts.

I am collecting lots of feedback from participants of my workshops, and I hope to improve them even further. Now I am considering recording this workshop as a series of YouTube videos.

Are you teaching how to write AI agents? How do you do it? Do you have any recommendations for my workshops?

https://xemantic.com/ai/workshops/

kypro 1 year ago |

This sounds interesting. I think you're jumping into the tech too quickly though.

I think the first thing you should do is introduce agentic AI? What is it and what can it do that previous computational paradigms couldn't? Jumping into an introduction to IntelliJ feels extremely dry.

I also suspect the cognitive science and theory of mind stuff will be a distraction if this is a practical workshop focused on building agents. It's interesting for sure, but those discussions tend to be result in people sharing their BS opinions.

ethanjustin 1 year ago |

This sounds like a fascinating workshop! I love the structured approach of blending AI development, cognitive science, and Kotlin. The inclusion of OPENRNDR for creative coding makes it even more engaging.

I'm running a website called What is Differ, where we explore and explain differences between various concepts, including AI-related topics. Your breakdown of agentic AI development could make for an interesting comparison article on different approaches to building AI agents.

If you're open to collaboration or sharing insights, I'd love to connect!

0xd3d 1 year ago | |

What is your website address?

Sevii 1 year ago |

Your course sounds like it covers AI assisted coding. What does it have to do with agentic AI?

morisil 1 year ago | |

It is exactly the opposite. Participants collect all the pieces of knowledge to build an agent like my Claudine at the end of the workshop:

https://github.com/xemantic/claudine/

tmaly 1 year ago |

I am not, but this is an interesting subject.

solomatov 1 year ago |

A bit off topic, but what would you consider as the best applications of agentic ai?

morisil 1 year ago | |

Personally I use it for implementing complete new features using test driven development, or fix bugs in existing code base.

Outside of software development I use it for managing all the legal documents of our cooperative (and it's Germany, and I don't speak German well ;) )

codingwagie 1 year ago |

Two responses in this thread were from accounts created today lol