What is AI, Really?
November 24, 2025
Much like Jan expressing her frustration and jealousy of Marcia in the Brady Bunch1, all we hear about these days in the news, on the socials, and on podcasts is “AI! AI! AI!” AI is a bubble. AI is taking your job. AI “hallucinates.” AI this. AI that. “AI! AI! AI!” A lot of noise but no one is really telling us: what is AI?
AI is a lot simpler than we think. AI is a super powerful tool made from math, not magic.
AI is not a brain and it certainly doesn’t think. AI works by recognizing patterns.
Think of popular tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. These computer programs processed essentially the entire internet - books, websites, videos - and learned the mathematical patterns of how humans speak.
These tools are essentially “predicting” the next word in a sentence. For example, the AI has “learned” that dogs fetch, because those words appear together often. It also knows that fish don’t. Rarely does anyone write “the fish fetched a ball,” so the AI knows not to predict that.
It isn’t “thinking”; it is guessing the next most likely word based on what it has read online.
AI is not alive. It has no feelings, no experiences, and no beliefs. And because it is just guessing the next word, it can get things wrong (and be very confident while being very wrong).
What does this mean for you?
For Students: Using this tool can be a major unlock but it is not a shortcut. It can make you a faster coder, a more polished writer, a more creative presenter, answer your curiosities, but it cannot make you smarter. You need to do the work of understanding. You need to do the work of critical thinking. If you cannot think clearly, AI will only lead you astray.
For Parents: you can use AI to help understand your child’s complex homework or decode teacher feedback. You can leverage AI to engage your kids where they are (i.e. “Make this picture of my son look like a character from the show Loud House”).
For Teachers: you can use AI to provide your students with personalized help. It is finally possible to create individual learning plans for every student in your class. You can also teach your students how to leverage AI to enhance their learning, rather than letting it do the work for them.
AI is a powerful tool that can help us in many aspects of our lives. Just remember: it is math, not magic.