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Short, practical reads on AI and data — from first principles to RAG, agents, MCP and AI security. Free, no sign-in.

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523 guides

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

A plain-language definition of AI, the difference between narrow and general AI, and why today's systems are mostly about learning patterns from data.

AI foundations 2 min read 7 Oct 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

A Short History of AI

From the 1956 Dartmouth workshop to large language models: the booms, the 'AI winters' and the ideas that shaped the field.

AI foundations 2 min read 5 Oct 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

How Machines Learn From Examples

The core loop of machine learning — data, model, loss and optimisation — explained without equations.

AI foundations 2 min read 4 Oct 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

What Is a Model?

A model is the learned artefact at the heart of every AI system. Here is what it contains, how it is stored and how it is used.

AI foundations 2 min read 2 Oct 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

Training, Validation and Test Sets Explained

Why data is split into three parts, what each part is for, and the mistakes that make evaluation results meaningless.

AI foundations 2 min read 1 Oct 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

Overfitting and Underfitting

How to tell when a model has memorised noise or missed the pattern, and the standard ways to fix each.

AI foundations 2 min read 30 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

What Is a Neural Network?

Neurons, layers, weights and activation functions: the building blocks of deep learning, explained simply.

AI foundations 2 min read 28 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

Parameters and Hyperparameters

Parameters are learned from data; hyperparameters are chosen by you. Knowing the difference is key to tuning models well.

AI foundations 2 min read 27 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

What Is a Large Language Model?

How LLMs work, what 'next-token prediction' means, and why they can be both remarkably capable and confidently wrong.

AI foundations 2 min read 26 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

Tokens and Context Windows

What tokens are, why models count in them, and how the context window limits what a language model can consider at once.

AI foundations 2 min read 25 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

What Is Generative AI?

Generative AI creates new text, images, audio and code. How it differs from predictive AI, and where it is genuinely useful.

AI foundations 2 min read 24 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

Common AI Terms: A Glossary

Short, plain-English definitions of forty terms you will meet when working with AI and machine learning.

AI foundations 2 min read 23 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 1 min

What AI Can and Can't Do Today

A realistic view of current AI capabilities and limits, to help separate genuine opportunities from hype.

AI foundations 1 min read 22 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

Rules-Based Systems Versus Machine Learning

When hand-written rules beat machine learning, when they don't, and how the two work together.

AI foundations 2 min read 21 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 1 min

The AI Project Lifecycle

The stages of a typical AI project, from framing the problem to monitoring in production — and where projects usually go wrong.

AI foundations 1 min read 20 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

How to Evaluate an AI Vendor's Claims

Questions to ask before buying an AI product: accuracy, data handling, testing on your data and total cost.

AI foundations 2 min read 19 Sep 2026

AI foundations Guide · 2 min

Getting Started With AI as a Beginner

A practical learning path for newcomers: the concepts to learn first, the tools to try and small projects to build.

AI foundations 2 min read 18 Sep 2026