The AI words everyone pretends to understand
Let’s be honest: every day we hear AI, LLM, token, prompt… and most people nod like they get it, but very few actually do. So I thought I’d explain, in plain English, what these words really mean.
If you already knew them, share the video. If you didn’t, share it anyway 🙂
Stay until the end, because after this, no one will confuse you with acronyms again.
LLM: Stands for Large Language Model. It’s the type of AI that generates text, like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. “Large” because it’s trained on massive amounts of data. “Language model” because it predicts what word comes next. It doesn’t think; it calculates probabilities. It imitates human language but doesn’t really understand it.
Token: A token is a fragment of text, sometimes just a comma. Every time an AI reads or writes, it counts tokens. More tokens mean higher cost. That’s why conversations are often limited: not because the AI is lazy, but because it’s expensive.
Prompt: The prompt is what we type to make the AI respond. Each model has its own “personality”: some prefer short commands, others love context. The clearer we are, the smarter they sound.
Context window: This is the AI’s short-term memory. It can only keep a certain number of words in mind before deleting the rest. It doesn’t forget; it just costs too much to remember. When it seems forgetful, it’s just being economical.
Hallucination: When AI invents something, it’s not lying, it’s completing statistically. It builds a sentence that sounds right, even when it’s completely wrong. This happens when it lacks reliable data or is trained badly. The result? An error that feels true.
Fine-tuning: Means retraining a model for a specific use: legal, medical, corporate. It makes it more accurate but less free. Each dataset and rule shapes a different artificial “personality.”
RAG: Retrieval-Augmented Generation. First it searches, then it answers. It pulls info from external sources and rewrites it. That helps reduce mistakes, but if the source is wrong, the answer is too.
Understanding these words isn’t about being technical. It’s about being aware. Because whoever controls the language controls the story.
And if you want to keep understanding how technology is reshaping our world, make sure you’ve hit follow.
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