What is generative AI? The evolution of artificial intelligence

Generative AI is an umbrella term for any kind of automated process that uses algorithms to produce, manipulate, or synthesize data, often in the form of images or human-readable text. It's called generative because the AI creates something that didn't previously exist. That's what makes it different from discriminative AI, which draws distinctions between different kinds of input. To say it differently, discriminative AI tries to answer a question like "Is this image a drawing of a rabbit or a lion?" whereas generative AI responds to prompts like "Draw me a picture of a lion and a rabbit sitting next to each other." This article introduces you to generative AI and its uses with popular models like ChatGPT and DALL-E.