What a language model is really doing

It has no plan and it is not looking anything up. It is guessing the next word, over and over, and that turns out to be enough.

Prefer to go at your own pace? The same thing is below, one step at a time.

The stepper above is drawn by the page itself, so it costs nothing to load and works the same on a slow connection. The film is the same drawing, recorded, for when you would rather watch than tap.