AI keeps coming up. These are the terms behind it — explained the way a patient friend would. No jargon. No assumed knowledge.
Software that can do tasks that used to require a human brain — like answering questions, recognizing faces, or translating languages. It's not magic, and it's not a robot. It's a very sophisticated program.
Learn more in the Plainly app →A way of teaching software by showing it millions of examples instead of writing rules for every situation. The program figures out the patterns on its own. Most modern AI runs on this.
Learn more in the Plainly app →The type of AI behind ChatGPT and similar tools. It learned from an enormous amount of text — books, websites, articles — and got very good at predicting what words should come next. That's how it "talks."
Learn more in the Plainly app →A specific AI tool made by a company called OpenAI. You type a question or request, and it types back a response. It's one of the most widely used AI tools in the world right now.
Learn more in the Plainly app →All the text, images, or information an AI was shown while it was being built. It's like the AI's education. What it learned from shapes everything it knows — and everything it gets wrong.
Learn more in the Plainly app →A set of instructions a computer follows to complete a task. Every app on your phone runs on algorithms. AI uses very complex ones, but the idea is the same: step-by-step rules for getting something done.
Learn more in the Plainly app →The structure inside most modern AI, loosely inspired by how the brain connects neurons. Information passes through layers of connections, and the network adjusts those connections based on what it learns.
Learn more in the Plainly app →AI that creates new things — text, images, audio, video — rather than just analyzing existing ones. ChatGPT generates text. This is what most people mean when they say "AI" today.
Learn more in the Plainly app →The question or instruction you type into an AI tool. The quality of what you get back depends heavily on how clearly you write your prompt. Better prompt, better answer — and that's a skill anyone can learn.
Learn more in the Plainly app →When an AI confidently states something that is completely wrong. It's not lying — it genuinely cannot tell the difference between a right answer and a wrong one. This is one of the most important things to understand about how AI works.
Learn more in the Plainly app →A video, photo, or audio clip manipulated by AI to show something that never happened — often a real person saying or doing something they didn't. Knowing they exist is the first step to not being fooled by them.
Learn more in the Plainly app →When an AI produces results that favor certain groups or viewpoints because of imbalances in its training data. If it learned mostly from one type of source, it reflects that source's blind spots.
Learn more in the Plainly app →The branch of AI focused on understanding and generating human language. It's what allows you to type a normal sentence into ChatGPT instead of having to write code.
Learn more in the Plainly app →A program designed to have a conversation with you, usually to answer questions or help with a specific task. Some are simple scripts. The newer ones, like ChatGPT, are powered by large language models.
Learn more in the Plainly app →An AI tool you talk to out loud — Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant. It converts your speech to text, figures out what you want, and responds. Same underlying technology as chatbots, different interface.
Learn more in the Plainly app →The AI behind what Netflix suggests, what shows up in your social media feed, and what plays next on YouTube. It learns your habits and tries to show you things you'll engage with.
Learn more in the Plainly app →Using software or machines to do a task without human involvement each time. AI adds a layer on top: instead of just following fixed rules, automated AI can adapt to new situations.
Learn more in the Plainly app →Many AI tools learn from or store what you type into them. It's worth knowing what a tool does with your data before you share something personal. Plainly covers this in detail in the Privacy module.
Learn more in the Plainly app →AI software whose underlying code is made publicly available for anyone to use, study, or modify. Some of the most powerful AI tools today are open source, meaning they're not controlled by one company.
Learn more in the Plainly app →The ongoing discussion about how AI should and should not be used — questions about fairness, privacy, accountability, and who benefits. It's not just for academics. These decisions affect everyone.
Learn more in the Plainly app →Plainly covers all of this and more — one module a day, free to start.
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