I might be taking a contracted job to help provide AI/ML guidance for a friend's company here soon, but all I really do is use ChatGPT/Claude Code a lot and don't really have explicit AI/ML tool building experience. They know this and mostly just want me for competency and comfort going from 0-1 with a new project, but I'm still pretty nervous! So I'm trying to conjure up some simple ideas to inspire me to learn :)

Currently trying to predict student absenteeism in the future based on historical indicators with synthetic data using basic ML modeling and then using LLMs to generate helpful guidance for relevant parties. Basically letting parents know there's concern and citing leading indicators.

Not sure what I'll do next, but hoping to come up with a few other ideas to put my mind at ease. It's fun having some actual motivation to keep up with the current hype instead of just being a consumer, though!