Behind the Chatbot

Say hello to my little friend, Chad Baht. He explains, in a back-and-forth dialog, how he actually works. Instead of reading about tokenization, training data, or hallucination secondhand, Chad Baht walks students through his mechanics step by step.

For additional resources for this activity, including a copy-and-paste script and a lecture slideshow, visit the ACRL Information Literacy Sandbox.

For anyone who wants to go further, Timothy B. Lee and Sean Trott's “Large Language Models, Explained with a Minimum of Math and Jargon” is a clear, plain-language account of how LLMs work. Fair warning: Understanding AI asks you to subscribe before you can read it.

Please note: chat transcripts are recorded.

Instructors: view transcripts (password required)