ChatGPT & LLMs

Text is converted into tokens, which can represent words, parts of words, or other units. An autoregressive language model uses the current context to produce scores for possible next tokens. Generation selects a token and continues from the expanded context. The result can be useful prose, code, or structured text, but this process does not automatically verify facts.

Many modern LLMs use transformer architectures. Attention lets a model combine information from different positions in a sequence. The original transformer paper is a useful source for that architecture, but it does not establish every detail of a particular commercial chatbot's implementation.

Training, prompting, retrieval, and tools are different mechanisms. Training changes parameters. A prompt supplies the current task and context. Retrieval supplies selected documents or passages. Tools can carry out actions such as searching or calculating. A product may combine these mechanisms, so an answer's quality depends on more than the base model.

Fluency is not a truth signal. A model can invent a citation, blend incompatible facts, or answer beyond the supplied evidence. For important factual work, identify the supporting passage, open the source, and check that it actually supports the claim. Treat a model's statement about its own confidence as an output to evaluate, not as independent evidence.