Basics

AI assistant

A general-purpose chat tool built on a large language model that can write, answer questions, analyse files and, increasingly, take actions such as searching the web. The same assistant may behave differently depending on its plan, settings and which model is selected.


Where this is taught

6Your first conversations with AI
Getting started with an AI assistant safely: what to ask, how to follow up, and how to tell a good answer from a confident one.

Related terms

AGI (artificial general intelligence)

A hypothetical AI that could match or exceed people across most intellectual tasks. There is no agreed definition or t…

AI (artificial intelligence)

Computer systems that do tasks we would normally say need human intelligence, such as understanding language, recognis…

Algorithm

A set of step-by-step instructions for solving a problem. In machine learning, the training algorithm is the recipe fo…

Chatbot

A program you talk to in a conversation. Older chatbots followed scripted decision trees; modern ones use large langua…

Computer vision

The field of AI that interprets images and video: reading text in photos, spotting defects on a production line, count…

Context window

The maximum amount of text, measured in tokens, a model can take into account at once, including your prompt, any file…

Beyond the definition

Knowing the word is the easy part

A short assessment scores you across five skill areas and builds a path through 18 modules, skipping whatever you already know. Free, no card.

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