Every AI breakthrough you've heard about? It's the same three math operations, repeated millions of times.
The Whole "Intelligence" Thing is Just This
Step 1: Multiply numbers
Output = Input × Weights + Bias
Step 2: Add a small curve
Result = ActivationFunction(Output)
Step 3: Do it again
NextLayer = ActivationFunction(Weights₂ × Result + Bias₂)
That's it. Stack this simple recipe 100+ times, and you get ChatGPT.
Breaking It Down
- Matrix multiplication (
Input × Weights) - This is just organized number crunching. Take your input numbers, multiply them by the AI's "learned" numbers. - Add bias (
+ Bias) - Add a small adjustment number. - Activation function - This adds a tiny curve to the result instead of keeping everything in straight lines. Common ones just cap numbers at zero or squash them between 0 and 1.
The Mind-Blowing Truth
When you ask ChatGPT "What's the meaning of life?" it's not pondering existence. It's just:
- Converting your words to numbers
- Multiplying those numbers by its trained weights
- Adding the curve
- Repeating this ~100 times through different layers
- Converting the final numbers back to words
The "intelligence" is just that after seeing billions of examples, those weight numbers got really, really good at this multiplication game.
Why This Works
No consciousness. No understanding. No magic.
Just multiplication, addition, and a simple curve function - repeated until patterns emerge that look like thinking.
The craziest part? This embarrassingly simple process can write poetry, code software, and hold conversations. Not because it "understands" anything, but because reality itself has patterns, and enough multiplication can capture almost any pattern.
AI is not mysterious, it's just a very expensive calculator that got really good at guessing what comes next.