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Welcome to AI at MCS.

Two paths below — pick the one that fits. No background assumed.

New to AI

Just getting started. What is this thing, actually.

What a model actually is

An LLM (large language model) predicts the next word — repeatedly, very fast. It doesn't reason or retrieve facts the way a database would. It learned patterns from a massive amount of text, and it generates responses that fit those patterns. That's it.

Three terms worth knowing

Prompt Your input to the model. Everything the model sees before it starts writing.

Context window The total amount of text the model can hold in memory at once — your messages, its replies, any documents you've attached.

System prompt Instructions set before the conversation begins. Defines the model's role, tone, and constraints. You rarely write this directly — tools like Synapse or Claude Code set it for you.

Assistant vs. agent vs. tool

Assistant You ask, it answers. One turn at a time. Synapse Chat is an assistant.

Agent Given a goal, it plans and executes steps on its own — reading files, calling APIs, running commands — until it's done or stuck.

Tool / skill A capability given to an agent: a function it can call, a file it can read, a command it can run. Skills in Claude Code are tools.

One thing to remember

Models hallucinate. They can state wrong information with full confidence. Never trust a factual claim without checking a primary source — especially for names, dates, versions, or regulations.

Go deeper:

Anthropic — what Claude is and how it works ↗