Generative AI
Generative AI is the category of AI that creates new content — text, images, audio, code — rather than classifying inputs or selecting from existing options. Before generative AI, most AI systems were about pattern recognition: is this a cat or a dog? Generative AI shifted the paradigm: instead of selecting, it generates. That shift is what makes this wave of AI feel qualitatively different from everything that came before.
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E001Notes on AI
What is AI
Most arguments about AI are actually arguments about definitions. The term "AI" is broad and vague, covering everything from simple spell-checkers to sci-fi killer robots.
E002Notes on AI
Why Generative AI Feels Different
Traditional AI classified and ranked things — it always felt like a system with predefined paths. Generative AI feels different because it creates: you express an intent and the system generates something that didn't exist before, rather than selecting from existing options. This shift from selection to creation is why GenAI triggers a response that feels magical or even unsettling — creation was previously something only humans did.
E003Notes on AI
How AI Thinks
LLMs are prediction engines, not reasoning systems — they predict the next token based on everything they've been trained on. The difference from human thinking is not the mechanism but the grounding: AI is grounded in the textual representation of the world, humans are grounded in lived reality. AI knows "about" everything but experiences nothing — and that distinction matters more than most people realise.
E004Notes on AI
Why GenAI Advanced All at Once
Common perception links GenAI primarily to chatbots. However, GenAI is a broad family of models sharing a single "DNA": Prediction.