Introduction to GenAI

Generative AI (GenAI) is a type of AI that creates new, original content like text, images, audio, code and synthetic data. Unlike traditional AI, which analyzes existing data, generative AI produces novel outputs that mimic human creativity. Generation (e.g., creating a new photo of a cat that doesn’t exist) is different from Traditional/Discriminative AI (either classification where the focus is on categorizing input data into pre-defined labels or classes (e.g., classification of an image as a ‘cat’ or a ‘dog’) or recognition where the focus is on identification of known objects (e.g., identifying a cat in a photo)).

GenAI works by learning patterns and structures from massive datasets to generate new, coherent, and contextually relevant content.

A Two-Stage Process

1. Training: The model learns from a vast dataset (e.g., millions of images, all of Wikipedia). It identifies statistical properties, grammar, and styles.
2. Generation: A user provides a prompt. The trained model uses its learned knowledge to create a new output that adheres to the patterns it has learned.

Topic: Evolution from Traditional AI

Feature	Traditional AI (or Discriminative AI)	Generative AI
Primary Goal	To make predictions or classifications based on data.	To create new, plausible data samples from a learned distribution.
How it Works	Learns a boundary between different classes of data.	Learns the underlying distribution or pattern of the data itself.
Example Task	Is this email spam or not spam?	Write a new spam email based on examples of spam.
Keywords	Classification, Regression, Prediction.	Generation, Creation, Synthesis.

Activity: Check whether each of the below scenario is GenAI or not.

1. A banking app scans a check and automatically reads the handwritten amount.
2. A marketing tool writes five different versions of a catchy subject line for an email campaign.
3. Your phone’s weather app forecasts a 70% chance of rain tomorrow.
4. A designer asks an AI tool to “create a logo for a coffee shop in a minimalist style, with a mountain in it.”
5. Your email service automatically sorts incoming messages into “Primary,” “Social,” and “Promotions” tabs.
6. A developer uses a tool that auto-completes an entire function body after they just type the function name and a comment.
7. A navigation app analyzes current traffic and estimates your arrival time.
8. A musician uses a program to create a new drum beat in the style of 1980s funk.
9. A streaming service recommends a movie to you based on your viewing history.
10. A chatbot summarizes a 10-page research paper into three bullet points.

Technologies for GenAI

For a detailed overview of the AI Evolution and the technologies enabling GenAI refer the section: Technologies for GenAI