Basics
Context window
How much text an AI can keep in mind at one time.
The context window is the AI's short-term memory for a single conversation. It sets a limit on how much text, counted in tokens, the model can consider at once, including your question and everything said so far. Once a conversation grows past that limit, the oldest parts start to fall out of view, which is why a very long chat can make an AI seem to forget what you said earlier.
For example
If you paste a 400 page book into a small context window, the AI can only 'see' a chunk of it at a time, not the whole thing.
Related
Large language modelA program that learned to use language by reading enormous amounts of text.TokenThe small chunk of text an AI reads and writes, often part of a word.ParametersThe internal dials a model adjusts while learning, numbering in the billions.Training vs inferenceTraining is teaching the model once; inference is using it every day.