Embeddings.
Turning words and images into points on a map, so things that mean the same thing sit close together.
- These two? Total strangers.1
To a computer "car" and "automobile" are just letters with nothing in common.
- car → a row of numbers.2
An embedding model reads each word and turns it into a list of numbers.
- Numbers are a spot on the map.3
Those numbers are really coordinates — a single point dropped on a map of meaning.
- Synonyms? Right next door.4
Trained on mountains of text, the model puts similar meanings near each other.
- Closeness equals meaning.5
Now meaning is just distance: close points mean similar, far apart means unrelated.
- Different words, same spot.6
That powers search by meaning: "reset my password" finds "account recovery."
Semicolony semicolony.dev/eli5/embeddings/comic