All About Arty: A Compendium of Artificial Intelligence kindle

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The complete, plain-English guide to how artificial intelligence actually works — from first principles to the frontier.

AI is everywhere in the headlines, but most explanations either drown you in jargon or oversimplify to the point of being useless. All About Arty: A Compendium of Artificial Intelligence takes a different approach: thirty chapters that build on each other, each one explaining a single piece of the puzzle clearly enough that a beginner can follow it, and precisely enough that a technical reader won't feel talked down to. At over 500 pages of carefully researched, fully referenced content, it reads less like a quick primer and more like a textbook — one built to be studied, not skimmed.

What's covered:

• Foundations — what AI, machine learning, and neural networks are, and how they actually learn
• Large language models — how tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini generate text, what "training" and "tokens" really mean, and why they sometimes hallucinate
• Generative media — the technology behind AI image, video, voice, and music generation
• Agentic AI — how AI is moving from answering questions to taking actions, using tools, and working autonomously
• Robotics & embodied AI — humanoid robots, self-driving vehicles, and AI moving into the physical world
• Chips & infrastructure — GPUs, data centres, and the hardware race powering the entire industry
• Economics, ethics & law — the money, the risks, and the regulations still being written

Plus six practical appendices you'll return to long after the first read:

• A full glossary of AI terminology, defined in plain English
• Quick-reference cheat cards for fast lookup
• A guide to choosing the right AI tool for any task
• A curated list of references and sources
• Further reading and communities for going deeper
• A worked example of the actual mathematics behind a neural network

Every chapter opens with clear learning objectives and closes with a recap, so you always know what you've covered and what's next. Whether you're reading cover to cover or dipping in to understand one specific topic, All About Arty is built to be the AI reference you keep on the shelf.

Note: as with any fast-moving field, the specific companies, products, and figures referenced are a snapshot from 2026 — the underlying concepts are built to remain relevant well beyond it.