Most people use AI every day and still can't explain what it actually is. They type a question, get an answer, and move on. That works fine until the AI confidently tells you something completely wrong and you believe it. Understanding what's happening under the hood is the difference between using AI well and getting burned by it.
The Simple Version: Text In, Text Out
At its core, an AI system like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini does one thing. It reads text input and generates text output in response. You type something, it types something back. That's the whole transaction.