AI Terminology Course
AI Terminology
/
Beginner

What is NLP?

Definition

Natural Language Processing. A branch of AI that gives computers the ability to understand, interpret, and generate human language in a valuable way.

Explain Like I'm New

Teaching computers to speak English (or Spanish, or Mandarin) instead of just speaking in 1s and 0s. It bridges the gap between human communication and computer understanding.

Real World Example

When you type 'pizza places near me' into Google, NLP is what understands you are hungry and looking for a restaurant, rather than looking for Wikipedia articles about the history of pizza.

Common Use Cases

  • •Search engines
  • •Chatbots
  • •Spell checkers

Interview Questions

basic

  • What does NLP stand for?

intermediate

  • What is the difference between Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Natural Language Generation (NLG)?

Flash Cards

Question

What does it stand for?

Click to reveal answer
Answer

Natural Language Processing.

Question

NLU vs NLG?

Click to reveal answer
Answer

They are the two halves of NLP. NLU is the computer *reading* what you typed and figuring out your intent. NLG is the computer *writing* a response back to you in fluent human language (like ChatGPT).