The 4 Properties of AI

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Next Token Prediction

Generative AI writes answers word by word based on what tends to follow what. It is a vastly sophisticated autocomplete — not a search engine.

Knowledge

What the model knows comes entirely from its training data, frozen at a knowledge cutoff — what it read, and when it stopped reading.

Working memory

Everything the model is attending to lives inside a fixed-size context window. Context is leverage — until you hit the cliff.

Steerability

The model follows instructions by continuing a pattern, not by understanding intent. Remarkably steerable — but a gap always exists between what you meant and what landed.

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