Generative AI

Earlier AI mostly picked and sorted. It decided whether a photo showed a cat or not, or whether an email was spam or not. Generative AI goes one step further and creates text and images that did not exist before.

It first learns patterns from a huge amount of data, such as "this kind of word usually follows these words" and "this kind of picture fits this kind of description." Then it builds a result that fits your request, one piece at a time.

Type "draw a puppy in a spacesuit" and you get a picture. Type "summarize this meeting in three lines" and you get a summary.

Anyone can now make text, images or programs just by asking in words. But it can also produce convincing falsehoods, so you need the habit of checking.