What Is Generative AI?

You've used autocomplete. Generative AI is what happens when autocomplete reads the entire internet.

Beginner6 min4 concepts · 2 questions · 2 cardsFree

The one-sentence version

Generative AI is software that creates new content — text, images, code, audio — instead of just sorting or labelling existing content.

Old software mostly recognised things: "is this email spam, yes or no?" Generative AI produces things: "write me a reply to this email."

The most common kind you'll meet is the Large Language Model (LLM) — the engine behind ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. For the rest of this track, "the model" means an LLM.

That's the first of 8 blocks. The rest is where it sticks.

Reading is the easy half. The questions and cards ahead put this idea into your own recall — and then bring it back on schedule until you keep it.

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Next in LLM Foundations

Tokens & Tokenization

Ask a model how many r's are in 'strawberry' and it can get it wrong. It's not stupid — it literally cannot see the letters. Why?

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