The AI Dejargonizing Series / Part 1

AI in healthcare shouldn’t be a jargon overload—it should be clear, useful, and human-friendly. I’m not here to show off AI knowledge; I’m here to simplify it so we can focus on building, not just talking. Every Thursday, I break down complex AI concepts into bite-sized, no-nonsense insights you can actually use. Let’s start with five AI buzzwords you’ll hear everywhere—explained simply        

What it means ? AI reads text by chopping it into tiny chunks—words, parts of words, or punctuation.

Think of it like this Sentences are puzzles, and tokens are the pieces. AI assembles them to make sense of what you’re saying.

Healthcare Hack When you ask, “What are pneumonia symptoms?”, AI processes each word separately to get the full picture.

What it means ? How much text AI can remember at once before it starts to forget.

Think of it like this: A doctor recalling only the last few sentences of your medical history… not ideal, right? The bigger the memory, the better the response!

Healthcare Hack: A chatbot with a small context window forgets details from earlier in the chat. A bigger window = smarter, more accurate AI.

What it means ? A supercharged AI trained on mountains of text to understand and respond like a human.

Think of it like this: It’s like a med student who has crammed millions of textbooks and can spit out expert advice.

Healthcare Hack: LLMs power AI doctors, helping with diagnoses, treatment suggestions, and patient questions.

What it means ? Teaching a general AI to specialize in a certain field—like cardiology or radiology.

Think of it like this: A doctor with extra training becomes a specialist. AI works the same way!

Healthcare Hack: A fine-tuned AI can read radiology scans better than a general AI trained on everyday text.

What it means: AI turns words into numbers and places them in a ‘map’ where related terms are closer together.

Think of it like this: "Heart" and "Cardiology" are next-door neighbors. "Heart" and "Banana"? Miles apart.

Healthcare Hack: AI knows “chest pain” and “angina” are linked, so it makes smarter medical connections.