Thoughts Brewing Blog

AI Quick Tips 126: Non-techie definitions of AI terms, Part IV

Written by Damien Griffin | Jan 23, 2025 5:15:00 PM

Let’s keep going with definitions.  There are a LOT of AI terms out there.


Prompt

  • Your input to an AI tool
    • Can be text, pictures, video, audio, etc. (it’s actually a really long list)


Multimodal

  • An AI tool that can process different kinds of inputs and outputs
    • I.e., text, images, speech, etc.


Training (or Pre-training)

  • Giving an AI model a large amount of information so that it can “learn” patterns.
  • It uses this information to create output.
  • If you’ve ever seen The Fifth Element, it’s like when Leeloo learns about 5000 years of history in a minute.


Voice Assistant

  • An AI tool that can understand voice commands and respond to them (or carry out tasks)
  • Usually for mobile devices, but not always


Autonomous Agent

  • An AI tool that has what it needs to carry out tasks without human intervention
  • A car that drives itself or an aircraft that flies itself are examples
  • It’s worth noting that “autonomous” and/or “agent” are sometimes used without the other