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+ The Lossy Computer Generator (LCG) is a new term that I have created to classify the specific type of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that has currently become popular. +

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+ The word "Lossy" represents how parts of the original data is lost and reproduction of the original data is not likely to be identical. +

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+ The words "computer generation" plays on how data, as with Computer Graphics (CG), is generated by the computer. +

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+ LCG includes the currently popular forms of AI known as Large Language Models (LLMs), Small Language Models (SLMs), and Neural Networks. +

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+ A Neural Network is a form of AI that has been around as far back as the late 1700s. + Types of Neural Networks used today are: LLMs and SLMs. +

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+ A LLM is what people are now casually calling AI. + A very simplified description of how an LLM works is that it copies the data into memory and remaps it into a modified form. + Restoring the mapped data requires re-creating the original data at run time, similar to how MP3 works. + This process is therefore lossy. +

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+ A SLM is a simplified version of an LLM that attempts to use fewer parameters and should require far less power (wattage). +

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Computers are AI

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+ AI has been with us for numerous decades. + The first computer ever created is AI. + Even the Punch Card Computer is an AI. + To put it simply, Artificial Intelligence is something that, when given a choice between two or more options, will make a decision. + It seems to me that society, at large, has forgotten that Artificial Intelligence is both artificial and has been with us for hundreds of years. +

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Computer Graphics Since 1800s

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+ CG is a form of AI that today's society has seemingly spontaneously forgotten the existence of. + There have been many software products over the years that provide some form of CG, such as Inkscape. + In fact, CG has been with us for as far back as the late 1800s. + Even movies have been utilizing this form of AI known as CG for a very long time. + The Braun Tube (in 1897), later called the Cathode Ray Tube, is part of an earlier form of computer AI used for CG. +

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Audio and Video Formats

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+ Audio and Video formats operate in two primary different forms: lossy, and lossless. + A lossy format loses some of the original data and can rarely reproduce the original data. + A lossless format completely preserves the original data and can always reproduce the original data. +

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+ Software protocols, such as MP3, restructure the original audio into an alternate form in a lossy manner. + Such lossy formats require the computer to recreate the original audio, dynamically, at run time. + This is analogous to how an LLM might recreate information or video. + There are other formats, such as Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC), that store the original audio without losing data. +

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+ The popular Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an example of another lossy format that is used for video. + The re-creation of an MPEG video at run time is a resource intensive process that often requires specialized dedicated hardware chips. + This process can sometimes cause errors and glitches due, in part, to being a lossy format. + These errors and glitches are often a reason why people might see ghosts or spirits in these videos. + These errors and glitches are essentially an incorrect representation of the original data, similar to how LLMs produce incorrect data, commonly (and absurdly) called a "hallucination". +

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What this All Means

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+ AI is not new. + LLMs are not new. +

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+ There already is software to perform many of the tasks that LCG is now being used to perform. + Those existing forms are often simpler, faster, more correct, and more accurate. +

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+ A LCG is most useful when one doesn't know what to search for, doesn't know the commands, doesn't know the documentation, or lacks the appropriate skills (such as drawing). + This technology should be used like gears on a bicycle, amplifying any work performed, and treated like a compass, providing a generalized direction without dictating the actual paths taken. +

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+ Understand what AI is as well as what it is not. + If our society fails to do so, then we, as a society, are more likely to be worse off with this limited, misunderstood, and lossy technology. +

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+ Kevin Day +

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