As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to gain momentum, understanding its evolving terminology is crucial. With generative AI going mainstream in late 2022, tech giant Microsoft has simplified key terms to help you stay updated.
Here are ten essential AI concepts that everyone should know:
1. Reasoning and Planning: AI can now mimic human reasoning and devise plans to tackle complex problems, bringing it closer to human-like decision-making.
2. Training and Inference: Training is the phase where AI learns from data, while inference is the application of this knowledge to make predictions on new, unseen data.
3. Small Language Models (SLM): These are compact versions of large language models designed to operate efficiently on devices without internet connections, making advanced AI more accessible.
4. Grounding: This involves anchoring AI models with real-world data to enhance accuracy and minimize errors, ensuring the outputs are more reliable and contextually appropriate.
5. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG): This technique boosts AI accuracy by integrating external data sources without needing to retrain the model, making it more versatile and informed.
6. Orchestration: Managing the sequence of AI tasks to maintain context and ensure coherent, accurate responses across interactions.
7. Memory: AI systems use orchestrated instructions to temporarily store and utilize context from previous interactions, leading to more consistent and meaningful responses.
8. Transformer and Diffusion Models: Transformers are pivotal for language generation, enabling AI to understand and generate text. Diffusion models, on the other hand, refine images gradually, showcasing AI’s diverse applications in language and visual content.
9. Frontier Models: These cutting-edge AI systems possess advanced capabilities that often exceed developers’ expectations, pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve.
10. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): GPUs are essential for AI due to their ability to perform parallel processing, powering the most sophisticated models and enabling faster and more efficient AI computations.
Understanding these key terms will help you navigate the rapidly advancing field of AI and appreciate the technological innovations shaping our future.