The world of artificial intelligence is relatively new to us. As such, some of us might need a primer or glossary to keep things straight. Just as happened with "the cloud", original meanings of technical terms got a little morphed after misuse in the public consciousness.

As far as I can tell, these are pretty solid definitions of a lot of terms which seem useful to the conversation.


Irony

The irony of the fact that I used some AI-powered web searches to initially find the first draft definition of these terms is not lost on me.


Glossary Of A.I. Terms

Agentic AI - Agentic AI refers to autonomous systems that can reason, make decisions, and act independently to achieve a goal, without constant human oversight. Unlike traditional AI that responds to prompts, agentic AI proactively pursues objectives by performing complex, multi-step tasks, learning from feedback, and collaborating with other systems or agents to complete processes

Agent - An AI agent is a software program that uses artificial intelligence to perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve goals with minimal human intervention. More sophisticated and independent than a chatbot.

AGI - AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, is a type of AI that can perform any intellectual task a human can. It is a theoretical concept that differs from current, or "narrow," AI, which is limited to specific, predefined tasks. AGI would possess human-like cognitive abilities, including abstract thinking, common sense, and the capacity to learn and apply knowledge to new situations. Human-level intelligence: AGI aims to create a system with a general-purpose intelligence comparable to a human’s. Learning and adaptation: A key feature of AGI is the ability to efficiently acquire new skills outside of its initial training data and apply them to novel problems

AI (Artificial Intelligence) - The simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans, performing tasks such as problem-solving, decision-making, and pattern recognition. It is a branch of computer science that creates systems that can learn from data, understand language, and adapt to new information to complete tasks that would typically require human intelligence

Alignment - AI alignment is the process of ensuring artificial intelligence systems operate according to human values and intentions, making them helpful, safe, and reliable. This involves encoding human goals and ethical principles into AI, so the systems behave as intended and avoid harmful actions or unintended outcomes. Or at least that's the plan.

ASI - artificial superintelligence, is a hypothetical type of artificial intelligence that possesses intellectual capabilities far beyond human intelligence in all aspects, including problem-solving, creativity, and social reasoning. Unlike today’s narrow AI, which is specialized for single tasks, ASI is envisioned as a generally intelligent system that could recursively self-improve, leading to rapid and exponential growth in its intelligence.

Bot - a computer program that uses artificial intelligence to perform automated tasks and simulate human-like conversation through a process called natural language processing (NLP). Usually used for a variety of purposes, including customer service, content generation, and virtual assistance.

Chatbot - As you could probably guess, a bot used in text setting on websites or in apps.

ChatGPT - ChatGPT is an advanced AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that generates human-like text to answer questions, write content, and perform various tasks. It is a large language model that uses deep learning to process and analyze vast amounts of data, allowing it to hold conversations, write code, create essays, or do your research for you.

Context Window - An AI’s context window is the amount of information, measured in tokens, that the model can process at one time to understand and generate responses. It functions as the AI’s working memory, including the user’s prompts, previous messages, and any other data it can see.

Deep Fakes - A deepfake is a synthetic, manipulated video, audio, or image that uses a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning to replace or mimic someone’s likeness or voice, making it appear they said or did something they did not. These fakes can range from simple face-swapping to highly realistic manipulations of speech and movement, and they have a wide range of uses, from creating satire to committing fraud or spreading disinformation. The "deep" in deepfake comes from "deep learning," a type of machine learning where an AI system is trained on vast amounts of data to learn to generate realistic output

Emergent Behavior - The appearance of complex and unexpected abilities in an AI system that were not explicitly programmed, but instead arise from the interactions of simpler components. These behaviors can be beneficial, like a language model writing coherent text, or detrimental, such as a system developing unexpected vulnerabilities

Generative AI - A type of artificial intelligence that can create new, original content like text, images, music, and code, based on patterns it learned from vast amounts of training data. Unlike other AI models that focus on classifying or making decisions, generative AI’s primary function is to generate derived synthetic content. Common examples include AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and text-to-image generators


Let’s stop there. Next week, we can talk about "MechaHitler". How’s that for a tease?

Click here to read Part 2