AI 101
This is a series that explains what AI is, in plain language, for anyone who uses it but has never heard the story behind it. No math and no jargon, just the foundation you need to get a real picture of it and use it with your eyes open.
The first time AI changed how I thought, I did not notice until weeks later, and that scared me more than any headline ever has. So I started writing. AI 101 is the foundation: what this technology is, in plain language, kept close to the ground where I use it every day.
Goals
AI 101 will not tell you which button to press. Those guides go stale the week after they ship. This is about the part underneath the buttons, what stays true when the tools change.
There is no shortage of people selling you a revolution. I care about a slower question: what is this thing, how does it work, and what is it worth to you?
No robot uprisings here. The real risks are quieter and worth naming, and you can only weigh them once you know how the thing under the hype works.
Nine short pieces, read in order, each one building on the last. Written from inside daily use, not from a safe distance, and you may forget the details as long as you keep the shape.
Who is this for. You are already using AI, or you will be soon. You have noticed it changing how you work, maybe how you think, and you cannot quite tell whether that is fine. That uncertainty is the honest place to start, and AI 101 is written for you standing in it.
This is not a tutorial and it is not a tidy verdict, AI saves us or AI dooms us, so you can stop thinking about it. It is the story behind the tool: what it is, where it came from, what it can do and what stays yours. Nine short pieces, read in order, and you walk away with a working picture of AI in your own head.
Nine pieces
What AI Actually Is
What AI actually is, in plain language. Software that learned patterns from examples, not consciousness and not computer magic.
Where AI Came From and the Hype Around It
Where AI came from and why it feels sudden. It is an old idea that finally works, and that history explains both the excitement and the anger around it.
The Different Kinds of AI
A map of the field. The language model, the image generator and the agent, plus the two plain questions that place almost all of it.
A Closer Look at the Language Model
The model you type to guesses the next word, over and over. That one move explains its confidence, its made-up facts and its forgetting.
A Closer Look at Image Generators
Words in, a picture out. How it learned the trick, why the same idea now makes video and music, and the fight over the art it learned from.
A Closer Look at Agents
A language model handed hands and a goal. It acts instead of only answering, which makes it the most useful and the riskiest of the three.
What It Can Do When You Guide It
The ceiling on these tools is mostly you, and it runs high. How to raise it at work, in learning and in the things you make.
You're Not Behind
AI moves fast and it is easy to feel behind. You are not. It has been in your life for years, and starting small is the only move that matters.
The Last Word Is Yours
The close of the series: hype and real technology at once, and the one idea to take with you. AI gives back exactly the value you put into it.
I use AI every day, in writing, in building this site, in the kind of creative and analytical work this series comes from. I use Claude Code to write and edit the code behind these pages, and I push these tools past their comfortable limits to find where the genuine value lives and where the claims fall apart. AI 101 is the walking that comes before the running: the real context, in plain language, so you can make up your own mind about it instead of borrowing someone else’s.