Definition: generative AI

Artificial intelligence software that creates text and media that appear to be original creations. Generative AI became wildly popular in the early 2020s, and ChatGPT is the poster child for this category (see ChatGPT).

The input to a generative AI system can be text, images, audio or video, and the output can be the same. Text-to-image, text-to-video, text-to-audio, image-to-image, image-to-text and speech-to-text are other variations.

Trillions of words and images are copied from websites and other digital sources (mostly without permission) to train the models that generate results (see Nightshade). Contrast with predictive AI. See AI prompt, AI image generator, AI video generator, AI text generator and generative art.

Everyone's Getting into It

Even Microsoft's Paint program, a staple for decades, added generative art in 2023. Offering eight artistic styles, these images of a "happy computer" were created using Pixel Art (top) and Oil Painting (bottom).

Put Me on a Horse in the Desert

AI applications can do everything today from writing an essay to transposing photos like this ChatGPT example.