Overview: Inside The Machine

Here's what nobody tells you: Computers aren't actually "smart." Your instinct is to think of them like electronic brains that inherently "know" things, but they don't. Fundamentally, a computer is just millions of tiny, microscopic light switches—called transistors—flipping on and off incredibly fast. That's it! Just 'on' and 'off'. But if you arrange enough of those simple switches, and flip them billions of times a second, you suddenly get video games, the internet, and AI. If all a computer can fundamentally do is turn a switch on (1) or off (0), how do you think it manages to represent something complex, like a colorful photograph?