Interactive · concept 4
How a model turns words into math.
A model can't do math with letters. So every word becomes a list of numbers, like coordinates on a map. The trick: words that mean similar things get put near each other.
Tap a word to see its nearest neighbours
Every word becomes a point in space. Similar meanings end up close together, and that is how the model knows “dog” is more like “cat” than like “king.”
The book behind this newsletter
Just Predicting Words
How ChatGPT, Claude, and Modern AI Actually Work
The trick is small. The world it built is not.