Let's define AI and LLMs in plain English, understand how they’re trained at a high level, recognize their limits and reinforce human oversight.
AI is software that learns patterns from massive amounts of data and responds in human-like ways. The technology behind tools like Gemini and ChatGPT is a Large Language Model (LLM)—a deep learning program trained on billions of words to predict the next word in a sequence. LLMs are trained in three simple steps: first, they are fed text data (the internet, books) to learn language structure; second, their internal workings (weights) are adjusted with feedback to make responses better; and finally, they are fine-tuned for specific tasks like generating a lesson plan.
Crucially, LLMs have limits. They can sometimes produce false or misleading answers (hallucinations), they lack real-world understanding or consciousness, and they can be brittle when asked questions outside their training data. Therefore, the single most important rule is “humans-in-the-loop.” Teachers remain the decision-makers, using AI as a tool to draft, brainstorm, or assist, but never as a replacement for professional judgment
