Big Ideas
Being able to actually use a tool — because it exists in your language, on your device, at a price you can pay.
AI Words
Every word you need to talk about AI, explained in plain language.
No word here is explained using a harder word. If a definition confuses you, that is our mistake, not yours. Your Brain Is the Boss™
Showing all 95 terms
A
Being Honest
Being answerable for the results, even when a machine helped produce them. A person is always responsible, never the tool.
Remember
The AI does not sign the letter — you do.
Kinds of AI
An AI given a goal and permission to take steps by itself — search, click, send — to reach it.
AI Basics
A set of clear steps a computer follows to solve a problem or make a choice.
For example
A recipe is an algorithm for cooking.
Safety & Privacy
Without a name attached. True anonymity online is rare; assume you can be found.
AI Basics
Computer systems that do tasks that usually need human thinking, like writing, reading, or recognizing pictures.
Remember
AI is a tool, not a person.
Being Honest
Saying clearly who or what made a piece of work — including when AI helped.
AI Basics
When a machine does a task on its own that a person used to do by hand.
B
When AI Is Wrong
When the AI answers unfairly because its training data leaned one way — one language, one country, one point of view.
C
Kinds of AI
A program you talk to in writing, that answers you in writing.
Being Honest
Naming the exact source of a fact, quote, or idea so a reader can check it.
AI Basics
A machine that stores information and follows instructions very fast.
When AI Is Wrong
Another name for hallucination: filling a gap in memory with something invented.
When AI Is Wrong
The habit of trusting an AI more because it wrote its wrong answer in smooth, polite sentences.
Safety & Privacy
Saying yes, in a way that is free and informed, before someone uses your data or your image.
Being Honest
Getting permission before you feed someone's writing, voice, or face into an AI.
Talking to AI
Everything the AI can see right now — your prompt, the earlier messages, any file you shared.
Talking to AI
A back-and-forth session where the AI remembers what was just said.
Safety & Privacy
A small file a website leaves on your device to remember you. Some cookies are useful, some follow you.
D
AI Basics
Facts, numbers, words, or pictures that a computer can read and count.
Safety & Privacy
When information a company was supposed to protect ends up in the wrong hands.
How AI Learns
Machine learning that uses many layers of small math steps stacked on top of each other.
Safety & Privacy
A fake video, image, or voice made by AI to look or sound like a real person.
Remember
If it feels wrong, slow down and verify before you share.
AI Basics
Anything stored as numbers a computer can read: files, photos, voice notes.
Big Ideas
The gap between people who have fast internet, good devices, and training, and those who do not. AI can widen this gap or close it, depending on who builds it.
Being Honest
Telling the reader or listener that AI was used to make what they are seeing or hearing.
Talking to AI
A first version of a piece of writing that you will still edit yourself.
E
Safety & Privacy
Scrambling information so only the right person can read it.
When AI Is Wrong
A wrong answer. AI makes errors even when it sounds sure.
Big Ideas
The rules we set for ourselves about right and wrong — including how we build and use AI.
F
Kinds of AI
An AI that tries to match a face in a photo or video to a name.
Being Honest
Comparing a claim to a trusted source before you believe it or repeat it.
Big Ideas
Treating people evenly. An AI is fair only if it works as well for the least-served group as for the most-served.
How AI Learns
One thing the AI pays attention to about an example, like the color of a fruit or the length of a sentence.
Talking to AI
A shorter next message that builds on the answer you just got.
G
Kinds of AI
AI that produces new text, images, sound, or video instead of just picking from a list.
H
When AI Is Wrong
When the AI writes something that sounds true and confident but is simply false — a fake quote, a fake source, a fake fact.
For example
An AI invents a book title that does not exist and attributes it to a real author.
Remember
Confidence is not proof. Check before you share.
Big Ideas
A person watching what the AI does and stepping in when it goes wrong.
I
Kinds of AI
An AI that draws a picture from a written description.
AI Basics
What you give the AI: a question, a photo, a voice clip, a file.
Talking to AI
A clear command inside your prompt, like "answer in one sentence" or "use simple words".
K
Big Ideas
AI that reads, writes, and reasons in Kreyòl Ayisyen as a first-class language — not as an afterthought translated from English.
L
How AI Learns
The correct answer attached to a training example, so the AI knows what right looks like.
Kinds of AI
An AI trained on huge amounts of text so it can read and write in many languages.
For example
ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are large language models.
Big Ideas
The ability to read, question, and use a technology on your own terms. AI literacy is the goal of this glossary.
M
AI Basics
The physical or online device where the AI runs.
How AI Learns
A way of building AI where the computer learns from examples instead of being told every rule.
When AI Is Wrong
When the answer is technically true but leaves out the piece that would change your decision.
When AI Is Wrong
Any answer that does not match reality. A mistake by a machine is still a mistake.
AI Basics
The finished shape of what an AI has learned. You send it a question and it sends back an answer.
N
How AI Learns
A math structure loosely inspired by brain cells, used in most modern AI. It is not a brain.
Big Ideas
Natural Intelligence first, Artificial Intelligence second. Use your own mind to lead, and let the machine help — never the other way around.
O
Being Honest
Something you thought through and wrote yourself, even if you used AI to check spelling or brainstorm.
When AI Is Wrong
An answer based on the world as it was months or years ago, not as it is today.
AI Basics
What the AI gives back to you: text, an image, a sound, a number.
When AI Is Wrong
When the AI has memorized its examples too closely and stumbles on anything new.
P
How AI Learns
One small number inside the model that gets adjusted during training. A big model has billions of them.
Safety & Privacy
A secret word or phrase that unlocks your account. Long and unique beats clever.
AI Basics
Something that repeats. AI learns by finding patterns in many examples.
Safety & Privacy
Anything that points to you: your name, your face, your voice, your address, your phone.
Remember
Do not paste personal data into an AI unless you have to.
Safety & Privacy
A fake message that tries to trick you into giving up a password or clicking a bad link. AI now writes very convincing ones.
Being Honest
Passing off someone else's words or ideas as your own. Copying from AI without saying so is plagiarism too.
AI Basics
The AI's best guess about what comes next or what an answer should be. A guess, not proof.
Safety & Privacy
Your right to decide who sees your information and what they do with it.
AI Basics
A written set of steps that tells a computer what to do.
Talking to AI
What you write or say to the AI to tell it what you want.
For example
"Write a two-line birthday message for my mother" is a prompt.
R
Kinds of AI
An AI that suggests what to watch, read, buy, or follow next based on what you and others have chosen before.
Remember
The suggestion is not a friend. It is a guess based on clicks.
How AI Learns
Learning by trying things, getting a small reward for good moves, and adjusting.
Talking to AI
The AI's reply to your prompt.
Talking to AI
Asking the AI to say the same thing in a different way — shorter, warmer, more formal.
Kinds of AI
A physical machine that senses, decides, and moves. Only some robots use AI.
S
Safety & Privacy
A trick designed to take your money, your data, or your trust.
Kinds of AI
A tool that looks through the web and shows you pages that match your question.
Kinds of AI
A car that uses cameras, sensors, and AI to drive without a person steering.
When AI Is Wrong
When the AI gives you an answer instead of saying "I don't know", even though it does not know.
AI Basics
Instructions written for a computer. An app is software.
Being Honest
Where a fact comes from. "An AI told me" is not a source.
Big Ideas
The right of a people to decide, in their own language and on their own land, how a technology will be used among them.
Talking to AI
Asking the AI to give you the short version of a long text.
How AI Learns
Learning from examples that already have the right answer marked on them.
Talking to AI
A hidden instruction from the developer that shapes how the AI answers everyone.
T
Talking to AI
A small piece of text — a word or a part of a word — that the AI counts as one unit.
How AI Learns
The long practice period where an AI studies many examples so it can answer later.
How AI Learns
The examples an AI learns from. If Kreyòl is missing from the training data, the AI will speak Kreyòl badly. What is left out matters as much as what is put in.
Remember
An AI only knows what it was shown.
Talking to AI
Asking the AI to move a text from one language into another.
Kinds of AI
An AI that turns text or speech from one language into another.
Being Honest
Being open about how a decision was made and what the AI did or did not do.
Safety & Privacy
A second check besides your password — a code by text, an app tap — that keeps thieves out.
U
When AI Is Wrong
When the AI has not learned enough from the examples and misses obvious patterns.
How AI Learns
Learning by grouping examples together without being told the right answer.
V
Kinds of AI
An AI you speak to out loud that speaks back, like Siri or Alexa.
W
Being Honest
A visible or hidden mark that shows a piece of media was made or edited by AI.
How AI Learns
A number that says how much one piece of information counts when the AI makes a decision.
When AI Is Wrong
When the AI names a source that does not exist, or a real source that does not say what the AI claims.
Y
Big Ideas
The final decision, the final word, the final signature belongs to the human. The AI advises; you decide.