An Introduction to GenAI Technology

Key Points

• AI text generators, such as ChatGPT, are trained on a large amount of data scraped from the internet, and work by predicting the next word in a sequence.
• All AI text generators can and often do produce plausible but false information, and by their nature will produce output that is culturally and politically biased.
• Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini work in a similar way to ChatGPT, but can access information from the internet, and are aimed more at being search tools.
• Image generators such as Midjourney and DALL-E are trained in a similar way, on data scraped from the internet.
• Many other applications are being developed that make use of GenAI technology. Current GenAI tools can produce text, images, video, music, audio, and computer code.

While users do not need a detailed technical understanding of the technology to make use of it, some understanding will help towards understanding its strengths, weaknesses, and issues to consider.

This is a fast-moving space, and the information here is likely to age quickly! This edition was updated in early February 2024, and we aim to update it regularly to take into account significant developments.