Vector databases.
A database built to answer "what is most similar to this?" by finding the nearest points in space, fast.
- Millions of dots to store.1
You already turned everything into points on a map. Now there are millions of them.
- What’s nearest to here?2
The question is always the same: which stored points sit closest to this new one?
- Compare all of them? No.3
Checking every dot one by one is hopeless once the map holds millions.
- Skip straight to the block.4
So it builds an index that jumps near the right neighbourhood instead of scanning all.
- Close enough, way faster.5
It trades a sliver of accuracy for a huge speed-up — "good enough, almost instantly."
- Here’s your top neighbours.6
Back come the nearest matches with their original items — the engine behind RAG.
Semicolony semicolony.dev/eli5/vector-database/comic