LM-Lab
How does your phone know what you're about to type?
Or more precisely — how can a machine predict the very next letter you'll type?
Chapter 1 · The Counting Era · ~10 min
In 1948, Claude Shannon asked a deceptively simple question: can we predict the next letter in a sentence just by counting? His answer launched a revolution that took 80 years to reach ChatGPT.
You won't just read about each idea — you'll build it yourself with interactive experiments. No math. No code. Just curiosity.
The Counting Era
1948–1990s“What if we just count patterns?”
Can you predict the next letter using nothing but counting? You'll be surprised how far this goes — and shocked when you hit the wall.
The Learning Era
1990s–2017“What if the machine could learn?”
Counting broke. The tables exploded. But what if instead of memorizing every pattern, the machine could figure them out on its own?
The Attention Era
2017–present“What if it could focus on what matters?”
One architectural idea changed everything. Instead of reading text one piece at a time — what if the machine could see all of it at once?