Understand AI before judging its answers.

Generative AI feels simple: you ask a question and get an answer. But the answer is shaped by more than the question itself – including context, memory, instructions, framing, reasoning and sources.

These six foundations explain the key relationships worth knowing if you want to use AI well and judge its answers more clearly. Each foundation stands on its own, so you can read them in any order. A shared example connects the pages, but you do not need to start at the beginning.