AI

AI, in working terms, is software that produces probabilistic output — answers that shift with the input, the model, and a little built-in randomness, in ways you can’t fully predict. Ask it the same question twice and you may get two different answers; ask it something hard and you may get a confident, well-dressed answer that happens to be wrong. That’s not a defect — it’s exactly what makes AI good at work you can’t script in advance, and exactly what makes it hard to verify.

Why it matters: The word hides two things. First, generative AI is really four technologies at very different stages of ready — text and image are grown-ups, voice and video are still earning trust — so “is AI ready?” is never one question. Second, AI is older and broader than chatbots: the spam filter that’s saved you a thousand times and the model that reads numbers off a check are AI too, cheaper and less flashy, and a surprising amount of wasted money comes from reaching for the new expensive kind when the old reliable kind was the right fit.