AI glossary / How it works

Quantization

How it works

Shrinking a model by storing its numbers less precisely, so it runs on smaller devices with a small loss in quality.

Think of it as: Saving a photo as a smaller file.

More words in How it works

• Reasoning modelA model built to think through a problem step by step before it answers. Slower, but stronger on maths, logic and planning.
• Reinforcement learningTraining by trial and error, where the AI is rewarded for good results.
• RLHFReinforcement learning from human feedback. People rate the AI's answers and it learns to give the kind people prefer.
• Self-supervised learningLearning from raw data without human labels, for example by hiding a word in a sentence and trying to guess it. This is how language models learn.
• SubagentA helper agent that a main agent hands part of a job to. It works on its piece and reports back.