Posts by Joshua D. Patterson
Intelligent Automation, Minus the Theater
What it actually means when you don’t have an IT department.
Read MoreAI Agents and Agentic AI: When AI Stops Talking and Starts Doing
Technical meaning. An AI agent is a software system that uses a model to pursue a goal through steps, tools, and decisions. In practice, it can decide what to do next, call other software, and continue until a task is complete or it needs human help. “Agentic AI” is the broader term for AI that…
Read MoreWhy I’m Relaunching This Site Now
After several years of leaving this domain mostly quiet, I am rebuilding it as the home base for my writing, advisory work, and technical research. The focus is practical AI, software systems, digital visibility, and the gap between what new tools promise and what real systems require. I will be publishing short AI Dictionary entries,…
Read MoreHallucination
What it means. A hallucination is when an AI model states something false as if it were true. The model is not lying. It is predicting plausible text, and sometimes the most plausible-sounding answer is simply wrong. Why it matters. Hallucinations look exactly like correct answers. They come with the same confident tone, so a…
Read MoreToken
What it means. A token is a small chunk of text an AI model reads and writes, usually a few characters or part of a word. Models do not process whole sentences at once. They process sequences of tokens. Why it matters. Cost, speed, and limits are all measured in tokens, not words. Longer prompts…
Read MoreAPI
What it means. An API (application programming interface) is a defined way for one piece of software to ask another for something and get a structured answer back. When your app uses an AI model, it talks to that model through an API. Why it matters. Almost every AI feature you add depends on an…
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