The Lab · Learn

How AI actually works

Small pages that run on this device. Read the plain version, move the sliders, watch what changes, then say what you saw. Tap any word you do not know.

Lesson 2

Retrieval

Before answering, the system looks up the most relevant bits of your documents and hands them to the AI along with your question.

It is like: Like an open-book exam. The answer is only as good as the pages you happened to turn to.
Why it matters at work: When a company chatbot gives a wrong answer about your own policy, the lookup often grabbed the wrong page. Check its sources.

The exact idea

Retrieval pastes the passages that best match a question into the prompt, and the model can only answer from what it is given.

Words on this page

Try this

Ask “How long can I keep a book?” with one passage. Read what the model would be given.
Now try “Loan period”. The right passage comes first, because it shares the words.
Raise passages to 3 on the first question. Does the right one make it in?

Change it

Ask for a seventh passage about the library café, then write a question that finds it.

“Keep a book” found the late returns passage, not the loan period. What will the model do with that?

Pick the one that fits what you saw.

It can only use what it was handed, so it will say it does not know or guess from the wrong passage.It will find the loan period in the full set of library documents anyway.It will answer correctly from what it learned in training.Retrieval will try again on its own until it finds the right passage.

Field notes

Reading the notes.