What's Actually Happening When You Talk to ChatGPT

Every few days someone asks me how large language models work. The answers they&rsquo;ve gotten usually fall into two camps: &ldquo;it&rsquo;s just autocomplete&rdquo; (dismissive to the point of uselessness) or a wall of linear algebra that helps nobody outside a machine learning lab. &#xA; I&rsquo;ve been trying to explain how AI and LLMs work to ordinary people, and I&rsquo;m not great at it…