Generative AI, Explained
A plain-English tour of generative AI — how it differs from older AI, the main families of tools, where it goes wrong, and how to use it responsibly.
Strengths, limits, and hallucinations
Play to its strengths, respect its limits Generative AI is genuinely powerful, but it is powerful at some things and weak at others. Knowing which is which is the difference between a useful assistant and an expensive mistake. What it is great at It shines at first drafts, brainstorming, and summaries. Ask it to outline […]
Which tasks it is worth handing over
The question is not “can it?” but “should it?” Generative AI can attempt almost any task involving words or images. Attempting is cheap; being reliably useful is not. Two questions sort the good candidates from the expensive disappointments. Question 1: is the material in front of it? Tasks where you supply everything needed — summarise […]
Reading AI output like an editor
The output is a draft by someone confident and unaccountable Generative AI writes with unearned assurance. There is no hesitation in the prose when it is guessing, which means fluency tells you nothing — and the habit worth building is reading output the way an editor reads a submission from a bright, fast, occasionally careless […]