AIF-C01 - Generative AI fundamentals - Section 2.1

Explain the basic concepts of generative AI.

Describe tokens, embeddings, prompts, and foundation models, and how a large language model predicts the next token. Distinguish generative models from the discriminative models used for classification.

TokensEmbeddingsFoundation models

Practice question for this objective

Free sampleGenerative AI fundamentalseasy

An architect is explaining to a stakeholder how a generative foundation model differs from a traditional discriminative classifier that outputs a single label. Which two statements accurately capture these concepts? Select TWO.

  • AA foundation model is pre-trained on broad data and can be adapted to many downstream tasks rather than just one. Correct
  • BA discriminative classifier generates novel samples that resemble its training data instead of labelling inputs.
  • CA generative model produces new content such as text or images, while a discriminative model assigns inputs to categories. Correct
  • DA foundation model is purpose-built for one narrow task and must be retrained from scratch for any other use.
  • EA generative language model selects its output by returning one fixed class label drawn from a closed list.
Foundation models are broadly pre-trained and reusable across tasks, and generative models create new content whereas discriminative models assign categories. A foundation model gains its breadth from pre-training on large general data, which lets one model serve many tasks. Generative and discriminative models differ in output: a generative model synthesises new content, while a discriminative model maps an input to a category rather than producing fresh samples.

Why A is correct: Broad pre-training and adaptability across tasks are the defining traits of a foundation model, so this statement is correct.

Why B is wrong: Generating novel samples is a generative behaviour; a discriminative classifier predicts a label and does not synthesise new data.

Why C is correct: Generating fresh content versus drawing a boundary between classes is the core distinction between the two model types.

Why D is wrong: This inverts the concept; the value of a foundation model is reuse across tasks, not single-task lock-in requiring retraining.

Why E is wrong: Returning a label from a fixed list describes classification; a generative model builds open-ended output token by token instead.

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