L001 · How AI thinks · 1 min
What is AI, really?
AI is software that learned patterns from examples instead of following rules a person wrote.
01 · The idea
Normal software follows instructions. A programmer writes: if the total is over 100, add free delivery. The computer does exactly that, nothing more.
AI works differently. Instead of rules, it is shown millions of examples, and it finds the patterns by itself. Show it enough photos of cats and it learns what a cat looks like, without anyone describing whiskers.
Today, when people say AI they usually mean chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. These were trained on huge amounts of text, so they learned the patterns of language. That is why they can write, explain and translate.
AI is not a person and not magic. It is a very good pattern-matcher. Knowing that one fact will help you use it well and spot when it goes wrong.
02 · Think of it like this
Think of a child learning to recognise dogs. Nobody gives them a rulebook. They see many dogs, and one day they just know. AI learns the same way, but from millions of examples in a few weeks.
03 · Do it now
04 · Quick check
Words in this lesson
See also
L013Staying safe · 1 min
What not to paste into AI
Treat a chatbot like a public place: never paste anything you would not want a stranger to read.
L054Under the hood · 2 min
Overfitting: learning the answers, missing the lesson
A model overfits when it memorises its training examples so closely that it fails on anything new.
L116Staying safe · 2 min
Your chats and AI training settings
Many AI apps can use your conversations to improve future models, and you can usually turn that off in a minute.
L003How AI thinks · 1 min
What a chatbot really does
A chatbot writes its answer one small piece at a time, each time picking a likely next word.