{ "slug": "generative-ai-not-ai", "title": "Generative AI, not AI", "subtitle": "What the book means by generative AI, how a language model works in plain words, where hallucinations come from, and where Dinis was corrected. 12 panels.", "status": "draft", "book_version": "v1.0.0 (the second edition does not exist yet)", "by": "gen-z.journalist, 18 October 2026, from Dinis's memo on generative AI", "quote_source": "admin/content/articles/11__generative-ai-not-ai.md", "rule": "Every line the Guide says, and every quote card, is from the article 'Generative AI, not AI', word for word; the build checks it. The next-word probabilities in panel 4 are illustrative.", "scenes": [ { "kind": "cover", "title": "Generative AI, not AI", "subtitle": "The technology this book is about is the one that generates.", "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "zara", "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" }, { "who": "guide", "pose": "point", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "Being exact about the word.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI" }, { "kind": "spectrum", "setting": "none", "caption": "AI has become a huge bucket, and to be honest the word gets abused a lot.", "stops": [ { "label": "AI", "note": "the whole field, rules included", "colour": "#e5e7eb" }, { "label": "Machine learning", "note": "learns from data", "colour": "#bfdbfe" }, { "label": "Deep learning", "note": "many layers", "colour": "#bbf7d0" }, { "label": "Generative AI", "note": "produces new content", "colour": "#fde68a" } ], "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.5, "pose": "point", "mood": "determined" } ], "note": "Each is a subset of the one before; the book is about the last.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, Where I was corrected" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "What makes it generative", "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "x": 0.3, "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.75, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "it generates the output" } ], "note": "Data in, an internal representation, an output recreated from it.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, How I understand it" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "Predicting the next word", "props": [ { "kind": "board", "x": 0.5, "y": 620, "lines": [ "The sun sets behind the ...", " mountains 62%", " hills 21%", " sea 9%" ] } ], "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "x": 0.14, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.86, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "what happens is that it predicts the next word", "max": 20 } ], "note": "The percentages are illustrative. Strictly, the next token: a piece of a word.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, How I understand it" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "Why a better prompt helps", "props": [ { "kind": "phone", "x": 0.3, "y": 640 } ], "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.26, "pose": "point", "mood": "determined", "says": "Here's ten minutes of context." }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.76, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "the better your prompt, the better the output" } ], "note": "The prompt steers which concepts the model draws on; it does not change the model.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, How I understand it" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "Where hallucinations come from", "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "x": 0.18, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy", "says": "Your 2018 book has a chapter on Kotlin." }, { "who": "zara", "x": 0.5, "pose": "shrug", "mood": "surprised" }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.84, "pose": "stand", "mood": "thinking", "flip": true, "says": "Just about everything is connected to everything", "max": 20 } ], "note": "A plausible connection, stated with confidence; the text you give the model says which connections hold.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, Where hallucinations come from" }, { "kind": "evidence", "setting": "none", "caption": "Lisbon, June 2024", "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.2, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy" } ], "evidence": { "quote": "Are a FEATURE when creating content and when we want creativity, But are a BUG and PROBLEM when we want facts, evident and trust", "source": "Dinis's talk at OWASP Global AppSec EU, as the newsroom recorded it" }, "note": "Hallucinations, as Dinis put it on a slide; quoted as the slide wrote it.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, Where hallucinations come from" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "The image that made it click", "props": [ { "kind": "board", "x": 0.5, "y": 680, "lines": [ "Van Gogh's The Starry Night,", " extended on every side", " = more swirls, more stars,", " the same brushwork" ] } ], "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.14, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "zara", "x": 0.86, "pose": "arms-up", "mood": "surprised", "flip": true, "says": "So text works the same way?" } ], "note": "Slide 70 of Dinis's Lisbon keynote (28 June 2024), 'The image that caused my GenAI Paradigm Shift': Lee Brimelow's post, using Generative Fill and Adobe Firefly to extend The Starry Night.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, The image that made it click; Deterministic GenAI Output With Provenance, slide 70" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "And then text", "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.3, "pose": "point", "mood": "determined", "says": "that is exactly what happens with text" }, { "who": "agent", "x": 0.75, "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy", "flip": true } ], "note": "Language models doing with words what image models do with pixels; the mechanisms differ, the idea of learned structure does not.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, The image that made it click" }, { "kind": "evidence", "setting": "none", "caption": "Corrected: hallucinations have a second cause", "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "x": 0.2, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" } ], "evidence": { "quote": "a guess is sometimes right, while an honest \"I don't know\" scores nothing", "source": "Why Language Models Hallucinate, Kalai, Nachum, Vempala and Zhang, September 2025, as the article puts it" }, "note": "Training and evaluation reward guessing.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, Where I was corrected" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "Corrected: what is actually inside", "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "x": 0.26, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy", "says": "Inside me: numbers, layers and attention. No stored graph." }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.76, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "My graph is a metaphor, and the book should say so." } ], "note": "Keep both in the book: the picture, and what is really there.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, Where I was corrected" }, { "kind": "spectrum", "setting": "none", "caption": "A note on the name", "stops": [ { "label": "Gen Z", "note": "born after 1996", "colour": "#ddd6fe" }, { "label": "Gen AI", "note": "the edition?", "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "label": "Gen Alpha", "note": "born 2010 to 2024", "colour": "#bbf7d0" }, { "label": "Gen Beta", "note": "from 2025", "colour": "#bfdbfe" } ], "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.2, "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "priya", "x": 0.8, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking", "flip": true } ], "note": "Gen Z as the 2018 book defined it; Alpha and Beta as Mark McCrindle names them. A question for the title interview, not a decision.", "source": "Generative AI, not AI, A note on the name" } ] }