Generative AI

Foundation Model

A foundation model is a large AI model trained on broad data that can be adapted to a wide range of downstream tasks. GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and DALL-E are examples of foundation models that serve as bases for specialized applications.

Understanding Foundation Model

A foundation model is a large-scale AI model pre-trained on broad, diverse data that can be adapted to a wide range of downstream tasks through fine-tuning or prompting. Examples include GPT for text, CLIP for vision-language tasks, and Stable Diffusion for image generation. These models learn general-purpose representations during pre-training on massive corpora, capturing patterns in language, images, or multimodal data that transfer effectively to specific applications. Foundation models have transformed AI development by enabling few-shot learning and zero-shot capabilities, reducing the need for task-specific training data. However, they raise concerns about computational cost, environmental impact, bias encoded in training data, and concentration of power among organizations with resources for distributed training. The foundation model paradigm continues to drive advances in generative AI, embedding quality, and the democratization of AI capabilities.

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Generative AI

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Related Generative AI Terms

Chain of Thought

Chain of thought is a prompting technique that encourages large language models to break down complex reasoning into intermediate steps. This approach significantly improves performance on math, logic, and multi-step reasoning tasks.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that uses large language models to generate human-like conversational responses. It became one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history after its launch in November 2022.

Claude

Claude is an AI assistant developed by Anthropic, designed to be helpful, harmless, and honest. It is built using Constitutional AI techniques and competes with models like GPT-4 and Gemini.

Diffusion Model

A diffusion model is a generative AI model that creates data by learning to reverse a gradual noise-adding process. Diffusion models power state-of-the-art image generation systems like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E.

Discriminator

A discriminator is the component of a GAN that learns to distinguish between real and generated data. It provides feedback to the generator, creating an adversarial training dynamic that improves output quality.

Few-Shot Prompting

Few-shot prompting provides a language model with a small number of input-output examples in the prompt to demonstrate the desired task format. This technique helps models understand task requirements without any fine-tuning.

GAN

A GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) is a generative model consisting of two competing neural networks — a generator and a discriminator. GANs produce realistic synthetic data by training these networks in an adversarial game.

Gemini

Gemini is Google's family of multimodal AI models capable of processing text, images, audio, and video. It represents Google's most advanced AI system and competes with models like GPT-4 and Claude.