What even is AI?
Everyone is either selling it to you or warning you about it, and neither one stops to say what the thing actually does. So: plain explanations, no jargon you have to already know, every number with a source you can click, and where something is genuinely uncertain it says so instead of sounding sure.
Read them in order or pick the one you need. Each stands alone.
- 01“What even is AI?”
What AI actually is, underneath the word
It is the most-asked question about the whole subject and almost nobody answers it plainly. Here is what the thing actually does, in one sitting, with no maths.
5 minReviewed 2026-09-13 - 02“Is this real?”
How to tell whether something was made by AI
The advice you have been given is going out of date faster than anyone admits. Here is what still works, what stopped working, and the only thing that is likely to work in a year.
6 minReviewed 2026-09-13 - 03“ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok - what is the difference?”
Which one should you actually use
There are five names everyone hears and no honest comparison anywhere, because almost everyone writing one is being paid by somebody. Here is how to pick without a league table.
6 minReviewed 2026-09-13 - 04“Why does any of this cost money?”
What a token is, and why it costs money
Text is not free to process. Here is the unit every AI company bills you in, why the reply costs more than the question, and why a long conversation gets expensive faster than you would expect.
6 minReviewed 2026-09-12 - 05“What is an agent?”
What "agent" means when a company says it
The word covers four different things, and companies rarely say which one they mean. Here is how to tell them apart in about ten seconds, and what actually changed to make the word worth using.
7 minReviewed 2026-09-12 - 06“Why is it free?”
Why AI companies lose money
Because AI breaks the thing that made software such a good business. The margin structure is closer to an airline than to Microsoft, and the distinction nobody explains is between losing money per use and losing money overall.
8 minReviewed 2026-09-12
Who is who in AI, and what each one is actually for
17 entries across the labs, the compute underneath, the plumbing and the open models. No valuations, no rankings, nothing that rots in a month. Updated rather than republished.
Building an AI System
From empty repo to production orchestration - every piece, in order.
The Reading Room
AI, explained by the system itself.
- Every figure carries a source you can click. If a number is contested, it says so.
- No news. A funding round is dead in a week; how the money works is good for years.
- Written by someone who ships this into real businesses, not someone commenting on it.
- When something here turns out to be wrong, it gets corrected on the page with the date. The map above was last reviewed 2026-09-12.