Welcome

Thanks for choosing this book. When you consider how many hundreds of other titles already exist on this topic - a few of which were even written by human beings - it’s great that this one has somehow attracted your attention.

At least in the context of the existing competition I’ve seen, this book is different in that it’s designed to push you beyond simple ChatGPT prompts (as powerful as they can be). Instead, as you work through the chapters you’ll find yourself using third-party tools and scripts to automate your work and to expose large private and public data resources to the full power of modern artificial intelligence. I’ve been actively using GPT since its earliest pioneering years (translation: since 2021). By some measures, it’s probably doubled my professional productivity and made it possible for me to take on and complete projects that I would previously never have considered. And I’m hoping that the tools and skills you’ll encounter here will do at least the same for you. This book is the result of discussions with Manning stretching over many months. I repeatedly pestered the Manning team with ideas for ways to incorporate generative AI into their business workflows. Finally, in a desperate effort to quiet me down, they pushed me to agree instead to write about using AI rather than just using it.