Interactive · concept 2
Why AI sometimes surprises you.
After all the reading, the model does one job: rank every possible next word and pick one. The dial for how adventurous that pick is, is called temperature. Drag it and watch.
The sky is ___
Temperature0.80
balanced
blue84%most likely
clear6%
grey4%
beautiful2%
dark2%
falling1%
a1%longshot
There is no thinking here, just a list of odds and a choice about how boldly to sample from it. Turn it down and it plays it safe. Turn it up and it gets creative, and sometimes wrong.
The book behind this newsletter
Just Predicting Words
How ChatGPT, Claude, and Modern AI Actually Work
The trick is small. The world it built is not.