AI model

A learned computational artifact, in current practice an architecture together with its trained weightsweights, n.: The learned numbers inside a neural network that set how strongly each part influences the next. The finished set of weights is, in effect, the trained model itself., that maps inputs to outputs such as predictionsprediction, n.: A model's output for a given input: its best guess at an unknown answer. In AI it need not be about the future; labeling a photo 'cat' counts as a prediction., classifications, generated text or actions. A model is produced by trainingtraining, n.: The process by which an AI model learns: it is shown huge numbers of examples and its internal settings are adjusted, bit by bit, until its answers get better. and used through inferenceinference, n.: Drawing a conclusion from evidence. In today's AI it most often means running an already-trained model to get an answer, as opposed to training it.; it can be stored as a file, versioned, copied, fine-tunedfine-tuning, n.: Taking an AI model that has already learned a lot and training it a little more on a smaller, focused set of examples so it gets better at one job or behaves a certain way. or mergedmodel merging, n.: Combining two or more trained AI models into one by blending their internal numbers directly, so the result shares their skills without any further training., and either released as an open-weight modelopen-weight model, n.: An AI model whose trained internal numbers are published for anyone to download and run on their own computers, even if the data and code used to make it stay private. or kept proprietary behind a model APImodel API, n.: A web service through which programs send requests to an AI model run by a company and receive its answers, usually paying per use instead of running the model themselves.. Legal and policy texts separate the model from the AI systemAI system, n.: A complete piece of technology that uses AI to do something, such as screening loan applications, driving a car or chatting with customers, including the AI model and the software around it. built around it. The EU AI Act treats a model as a core ingredient of a system rather than a system in itself, one that becomes a system only when combined with other parts such as a user interface (Recital 97), and it regulates general-purpose AI modelsgeneral-purpose AI model, n.: The EU's legal name for the large, adaptable AI models behind chatbots and similar tools: models that can turn their hand to many different jobs and be built into many other products. separately from systems. US Executive Order 14110 (2023, revoked 2025) defined an AI model as the AI-implementing part of an information system, which produces outputs from inputs by computational, statistical or machine-learning methods.

We swapped the AI model behind the assistant without changing the interface, and customers noticed only that it got faster.