Set up your notebook. You will need it at the end of class.
Copy these. Leave space under each one for a definition.
- storage
- memory (RAM)
- processor (CPU)
- the card (GPU and VRAM)
Think about these. Nothing to write.
- You have downloaded something big before. How did you know it would fit?
- Your phone says storage is almost full. What actually stops working?
- If this file were on your own laptop, would that make it your AI?
Copy this into your Lab Notebook and leave room under it. You will answer it at the end of class.
What has to fit where for a computer to run anything?
The words, in plain terms
None of this is about AI yet. It is what every computer is made of. The AI part comes after.
Somewhere on a computer in this building there is a file. Not a program. Not a website. A file, the same kind of thing as a photo or a song, except that this one is 6.63 gigabytes and it is an artificial intelligence.
That last part is the hard part. Most people have never thought of an AI as a thing that sits somewhere. They think of it as a place you go, the way you go to a search engine, with the answer arriving from somewhere far off that nobody has to picture. The AI running in this classroom is not a place. It is a file with a size, and everything else in this unit follows from that.
A file has to be kept somewhere. Turn a computer off, unplug it, leave it in a drawer for a year, and the files on it do not go anywhere. Photos stay. Homework stays. The part of the machine that holds things through all of that is called storage, and every device in this room has some.
Storage has a size, and that size is the first gate. A Chromebook in this class has thirty two gigabytes of it in total. That sounds like a lot until you learn what is already using it. The operating system takes a share, updates take another, and everything downloaded since the machine was assigned takes the rest. Across twelve Chromebooks checked one afternoon in August, the amount left over ranged from two to four gigabytes.
Set that beside 6.63 and the arithmetic is not close. The file will not fit. Not slowly, not with patience, not overnight. There is nowhere to put it.
Suppose it did fit. Suppose the drive were empty and the whole 6.63 gigabytes copied over without complaint. What happens next is nothing. The file sits there taking up space and answering no questions. A file of this kind is not a set of instructions the way a program is. It is a very large pile of numbers, and numbers by themselves do not do anything. What makes them do something is a separate question, and it is not this one.
Assume that question has an answer. Now a second problem appears, and it is one most people never hear about.
Work does not happen on the drive. A machine cannot reach into storage and do arithmetic there, because storage is built to hold things for a long time rather than to hand them over quickly. Before anything can be worked on, it has to be moved into a different part of the machine, one that is much faster and much smaller and that empties completely every time the power goes off. That is the machine’s working memory, and on a spec sheet it is written RAM. Everything a computer is actively doing is sitting in RAM right now. Everything it is merely keeping is sitting in storage.
The Chromebook has four gigabytes of RAM. The file is 6.63. This is the second failure and it is a different failure from the first. Clearing the drive would not help. Deleting every photo, every download, every app would free storage and would not add a single gigabyte of RAM. The machine cannot hold this file while it works on it, and no amount of tidying changes that.
So something else has to hold it. The part of a machine that does the arithmetic is called a processor, and computers have more than one kind. The one most people have heard of is written CPU on a spec sheet. It handles a few things at a time, very quickly, in order. That is the wrong shape for this job.
Running one of these files means doing an enormous number of very small multiplications that do not depend on each other. None of them has to wait for the one before it. There is another kind of processor already built for exactly that pattern, and it was not built for artificial intelligence at all. It was built to decide what color each of a million pixels on a screen should be, which is the same shape of problem. On a spec sheet it is written GPU, and it lives on a card.
The card carries working memory of its own. Not a different kind of thing from RAM, but the same idea in a second place: fast, much smaller than storage, empty every time the power goes off, and this time close enough to the GPU to be worked on. It is written VRAM.
So a machine has two of each. RAM and a CPU on one side, VRAM and a GPU on the card. Storage sits under both, holding things that are not being used at all. When people ask what a graphics card can run, the number they mean is its VRAM.
Those cards come in sizes. Eight gigabytes of VRAM. Sixteen. Twenty four. The file is 6.63.
Now the question is worth asking properly. Which machines in the world can run this thing, and is any of them yours?
B. Storage is the part that holds things through a power cut. The other three all empty when the machine turns off, or do not hold anything at all. Storage is where a file waits when nothing is using it.
Notebook: Storage. Three lines. Write what it does, not what it is.
C. Deleting files frees storage. It has no effect on RAM, because RAM is not where deleted files were living. This is the difference the passage builds the whole second half on: clearing the drive cannot make the machine able to hold a file while working on it.
Notebook: RAM. Three lines. Note that it is measured separately from storage.
C. The fit is about the shape of the work, not the speed of the chip. Running a model means millions of multiplications where none has to wait for another. A GPU is built to do exactly that kind of work all at once. A CPU is faster in each individual lane and has far fewer of them.
Notebook: GPU. Three lines. Say what kind of work it suits.
D. VRAM is the working memory on the card. RAM is the working memory in the machine. They do the same job in two different places, and knowing which is which is the whole point of reading a spec sheet.
Notebook: VRAM. Three lines. Say where it is, not just what it holds.
B. The file is not a program. Programs are instructions a machine can follow. This is a very large collection of numbers, and numbers on their own do not do anything. What makes them do something is the subject of the next class.
C. Four is the largest number in that range and the file is 6.63. Every device checked came up short. The comparison is subtraction, and it is not close.
D. Emptying the drive is a storage fix. The second failure is about RAM, which is a different number on a different part of the machine. A file cannot be worked on from storage, so it has to fit somewhere it cannot fit.
A. Graphics and running a model turn out to be the same kind of arithmetic: huge numbers of small independent multiplications. The hardware was designed for video games and turned out to suit this, which nobody planned.
B. 6.63 is smaller than sixteen, so it fits. Notice what the question did not need: the speed of the card, the speed of the machine, the year it was made, or the price. One subtraction settles it.
D. Both, and in that order. Storage decides whether the machine can keep the file at all. RAM decides whether it could ever work on it. The Chromebook fails on both, for two separate reasons, and only one of them is something a student could fix by deleting things.
Read the picture
A machine has two of each, and the reason is that holding something and working on something are two different jobs.
Read the picture across, not down. The top row is the two places a file can sit while it is being used. The bottom row is the two things that can do the arithmetic. The left column is in the machine itself. The right column is on the card.
Storage runs underneath both columns because it belongs to neither. Nothing is ever worked on in storage. A file there is a file waiting.
The words in the boxes are the words you will see on a spec sheet, in a store, and in every guide about this you ever read.
Read the picture
This is one machine drawn twice, at two different moments.
On the left the file is in storage. It will survive the power going off, the machine sitting in a drawer, and a year passing. Nothing is happening to it.
On the right the same file is in VRAM. Now it can be worked on. It also disappears completely the instant the power is cut, and it has to be put there again the next time.
There is deliberately no arrow between the two halves, because nothing travelled. Both pictures are true of the same machine at different times. The file did not go on a journey. It changed address.
Read the picture
Two pictures of the same machine.
The picture on the left is deliberately wrong. It shows what the word load sounds like: an arrow carries the file up out of storage into VRAM, and there is a dashed outline where the file used to be.
The picture on the right is what actually happens. The file stays in storage, at full strength. A copy of it appears in VRAM. Two addresses, one file, and one of them forgets when the power goes off.
Load means copy, not move. Placed here on purpose, in grey and dashed, so the correct picture beside it has something to be correct against.
Read the picture
Every bar is drawn to the same scale, and the red block is the same file every time. That is what makes the four comparisons honest.
The question is the same for each machine and it is answered with subtraction. Is the number on the machine larger than 6.63, or is it not.
The first bar is different from the other three, and the difference matters. The Chromebook’s bar is RAM, the working memory in the machine itself. The other three bars are VRAM, working memory on a card. The Chromebook does not have a small card. It has no card at all, which is why its RAM is the only thing that could possibly hold the file, and why it comes up short by 2.63 gigabytes.
Notice what the question never needed. Not the speed of the machine, not the year it was made, not the price. One subtraction settled all four.
Three machines in the world can hold this file. None of them is in this room.
Read the picture
Every bar is drawn to the same scale, and the red block is the same file every time. That is what makes the four comparisons honest.
The question is the same for each machine and it is answered with subtraction. Is the number on the machine larger than 6.63, or is it not.
The first bar is different from the other three, and the difference matters. The Chromebook’s bar is RAM, the working memory in the machine itself. The other three bars are VRAM, working memory on a card. The Chromebook does not have a small card. It has no card at all, which is why its RAM is the only thing that could possibly hold the file, and why it comes up short by 2.63 gigabytes.
Notice what the question never needed. Not the speed of the machine, not the year it was made, not the price. One subtraction settled all four.
Three machines in the world can hold this file. None of them is in this room.
Read the picture
Every bar is drawn to the same scale, and the red block is the same file every time. That is what makes the four comparisons honest.
The question is the same for each machine and it is answered with subtraction. Is the number on the machine larger than 6.63, or is it not.
The first bar is different from the other three, and the difference matters. The Chromebook’s bar is RAM, the working memory in the machine itself. The other three bars are VRAM, working memory on a card. The Chromebook does not have a small card. It has no card at all, which is why its RAM is the only thing that could possibly hold the file, and why it comes up short by 2.63 gigabytes.
Notice what the question never needed. Not the speed of the machine, not the year it was made, not the price. One subtraction settled all four.
Three machines in the world can hold this file. None of them is in this room.
Read the picture
Every bar is drawn to the same scale, and the red block is the same file every time. That is what makes the four comparisons honest.
The question is the same for each machine and it is answered with subtraction. Is the number on the machine larger than 6.63, or is it not.
The first bar is different from the other three, and the difference matters. The Chromebook’s bar is RAM, the working memory in the machine itself. The other three bars are VRAM, working memory on a card. The Chromebook does not have a small card. It has no card at all, which is why its RAM is the only thing that could possibly hold the file, and why it comes up short by 2.63 gigabytes.
Notice what the question never needed. Not the speed of the machine, not the year it was made, not the price. One subtraction settled all four.
Three machines in the world can hold this file. None of them is in this room.
Read the picture
Every bar is drawn to the same scale, and the red block is the same file every time. That is what makes the four comparisons honest.
The question is the same for each machine and it is answered with subtraction. Is the number on the machine larger than 6.63, or is it not.
The first bar is different from the other three, and the difference matters. The Chromebook’s bar is RAM, the working memory in the machine itself. The other three bars are VRAM, working memory on a card. The Chromebook does not have a small card. It has no card at all, which is why its RAM is the only thing that could possibly hold the file, and why it comes up short by 2.63 gigabytes.
Notice what the question never needed. Not the speed of the machine, not the year it was made, not the price. One subtraction settled all four.
Three machines in the world can hold this file. None of them is in this room.
The words, in plain terms
Does it fit on a Chromebook?
Reveal
No. 6.63 is larger than 4, and 4 is the largest free number found in the audit. The comparison is not close.
So what would it take to make the file do something?
We are not answering this today. Bring it back tomorrow.
Would clearing the whole drive fix it?
Reveal
No. Deleting files frees storage and adds no RAM. This is the second failure, and it is a different failure from the first.
Chromebook, 4 GB RAM against 6.63 GB. Fit?
Reveal
No. Over by 2.63 GB.
Three machines can run it, and none of them is in this room.
Partner work first. Then quiet work time.
- No cellphones
- No sleeping
- No non-academic use of Chromebooks
- A quiet room and music
- No interruptions from the teacher
- If you are caught up on this course's work, you may work on anything legitimate for another class