Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like you're only interested in getting back into AI because it is currently in the limelight. "Working in AI" a few years ago doesn't mean much if you have nothing to show for it. What I'm getting at, is your motivations don't seem genuine; there's nothing that tells me you care about the technology advancing more than a paycheck.
As someone with 10 years of professional experience in software, I find every AI "trend" that has come up in that time to be incredibly odd. It is certainly remarkable what chatGPT, StableDiffusion, and other examples are doing today... Ultimately people are giving waaaaaaaay too much credit without understanding the technical details. These are pidgeon-holed examples that still aren't solving any real problems.
On the side, I make cheap Wordpress sites for small businesses (mostly as a favor to folks I know personally) and always had a hard time writing good marketing copy.
I’ve found that what ChatGPT comes up with is often a great start and has already saved me hours of time. Is it as good as paying a professional? Probably not. But I think it’s fair to say these models are already solving real world problems, even if they still need a bit of a helping hand. Just my thoughts, I’m not an expert on the models themselves.
Also when programming, I run into small things four or five times a day, that I used to Google for, maybe search Stack Overflow. But there is a lot of blog spam to wade through and finding the right search terms is hard.
Huh, WTF? What's wrong in getting interested in something because there is new progress in it? And how can you assume he is only interested in it because of the money when he only asked about how to learn, play around with code and didn't ask anything about finding a job or projects to work on?
It's disingenuous. There's a difference between getting into a topic because it interests someone, and getting into a topic because it's incredibly hyped right now. Do you really believe it's the former...?
Considering OP mentioned a lot of recent hype trains relating to AI, it's perfectly reasonable to assume they are chasing dollars, rather than contributing to the underlying technology without further expectations.
So, OP comes off as very disingenuous when they lead with the hype and provide nothing of substance.
As someone with 10 years of professional experience in software, I find every AI "trend" that has come up in that time to be incredibly odd. It is certainly remarkable what chatGPT, StableDiffusion, and other examples are doing today... Ultimately people are giving waaaaaaaay too much credit without understanding the technical details. These are pidgeon-holed examples that still aren't solving any real problems.
AI is still just statistics with marketing.