What’s in the free course?
Recently, on social networks there have been many articles advertising a free course, claiming to help a newbie write a book within 30 days, which can then be sold. A self-written book on online platforms to earn extra income, called “Writing books using AI technology”.
As people in need, we have left information to register for tickets to attend the online program above. In just a few hours, a strange Zalo account added us to a group of over 500 people.
According to the introduction of the organizers, the speaker of this program is H.D.D. This person was introduced by the MC as an “AI Academy lecturer”, an expert with experience in publishing many books using AI technology.
As soon as we entered the Zoom class, the organizers played music, creating a vibrant atmosphere. After about 20 minutes, the speaker appeared with a neat shirt and a strong, deep voice to greet all the students.
To create a spirit of determination for the whole class, the “teacher” asked students to turn on the camera and mute the sound, then text “ss” in the chat box to be ready to receive “wonderful” sharing from the speaker.
According to previous advertisements, the program will help students create course book content and details with the smart AI assistant AIVA Book, design book covers and page layouts with professional design templates, and how to create books. electronics and sales of my ebook.
However, in the actual lesson, students are only generally introduced to Chat GPT and the application of AI in the book writing process. At the same time, the previously advertised content, the speaker said, “will be taught methodically in the upcoming intensive class”.
After about 3 hours of sharing, the lecturer turned to introduce an in-depth course on writing books with AI priced at 3,990,000 VND. “This class only offers incentives for the first 15 people who register before 24 hours tonight” – the speaker said.
About 10 minutes later, the organizers continued to update that there were only 10 final seats left to enjoy this preferential price. If you don’t hurry, you won’t have the chance to register.
The next day, we continued to receive messages from the organizers: “After the class, teacher H.D.D has an attractive incentive policy for those who register for the intensive course today. get an additional discount of 1,000,000 VND”.
In addition, the “teacher” also gives away 4 more attractive gifts: GPT Book Pro assistant set written on the GPT-4 Chat platform, AIVA Book assistant set with 50 AIVA assistants, join the AI VIP club in the evening. Sunday training by AI Application Academy, 4 Team Chat account worth 30 USD and AI Clip Video account worth 20 USD.
Disillusioned
Participating in the free class, Mr. Nguyen Van Tung (Hanoi) hopes to be able to publish the book in 30 days as “master” H.D.D affirmed. However, during 2/3 of the class, Mr. Tung said, he almost only heard the speaker’s achievements and “huge” income, although no one could verify the authenticity of this information.
“The group was very large, mostly new to business, and interacted enthusiastically, so I was not suspicious. In particular, the organizing team also enthusiastically helped answer students’ questions a few days before the program took place,” Mr. Tung said.
Mr. Tung commented that the knowledge shared in the free class is very general and vague, anyone can easily search on Google.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen Viet Hoang (Nghe An) said that during the free lesson, because he was afraid of missing the opportunity to register as the organizers said, he immediately transferred money to get a ticket to participate in the intensive lesson. However, talking to reporters, Mr. Hoang affirmed that he regretted his decision.
“With the amount of money not too small, in return, what I learned was very vague, general and lacking in practicality, making it difficult to apply for practical results,” Mr. Hoang said.
* The names of the students in the article have been changed.
Be careful of free programs disguised as selling courses
To clarify readers’ feedback, we contacted the “instructor” of this training class, Mr. H.D.D, but have not received a response. Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen Viet Hoang said that after reflecting on spending money to take the “Writing books with AI technology” class but not receiving the results as advertised, Mr. Hoang received information from the class organizers. , will be studied again in the following course.
Talking to reporters, Associate Professor Dr. Dinh Trong Thinh – former Senior Lecturer at the Academy of Finance – said that currently, many free programs are selling courses, books or other products to make a profit.
“Taking advantage of trust, they begin to “paint” students a dreamy picture, even an illusion about a shortcut to make money. Since then, many people have lost from a few million to several tens of millions of dong to “get rich” for themselves,” experts warned.
