Fundamentals on Fernando Ruiz

Tokens: The Unit AI Thinks (and Bills) In

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

A token is the smallest unit of text a language model reads and writes. It can be a whole word, a fragment of a word or a punctuation mark. AI providers measure the size of each request, and its cost, in tokens.

What is a token?

A model does not see letters or words the way we do. Before processing a text, a component called the tokenizer splits it into pieces from a fixed vocabulary. A frequent word is usually a single token; a rare, long or misspelled word is split into several. Numbers, spaces and emojis also take up tokens.

What Is an AI Agent?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

An AI agent is a system in which a language model receives a goal, decides which steps to take, uses tools to act (read files, run commands, call services) and reviews the results until the task is finished or it stops.

What does it mean that it “decides” its steps?

A traditional chatbot answers a question with text and waits for the next one. An agent receives a task such as “fix the failing tests in the authentication module” and works out the order by itself: first it runs the tests, then it reads the files that fail, then it edits the code and finally runs the tests again to check.

What Is an LLM? Explained for Designers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

info Quick Definition

An LLM (large language model) is a neural network trained on enormous amounts of text to predict which token comes next after another. That simple ability, repeated over and over, produces answers, summaries, code and text that reads as if a person wrote it.

What is an LLM, in one sentence?

An LLM is a system that, given a text, calculates the probability of each possible next piece of text and picks one. It then repeats the process with the extended text. It does not look the answer up in a database or an internal encyclopedia: it generates it step by step.