How do large language models generate human-like text?

Large language models are like super-smart helpers who can write stories, letters, or even jokes just by thinking about words and how they fit together.

Imagine you have a giant box full of word tiles, each tile has a different word on it. A large language model is like someone who knows all the words in that box and understands how to put them together to make sentences that sound just like people talk or write.

These helpers spend a lot of time reading books, articles, messages, and everything else written by humans. By doing this, they learn what words usually come next after other words, it's like learning the rules of a game.

When they want to create new text, they start with one word or phrase and then pick the next word that makes sense based on what they've learned. They keep doing this step by step, choosing each new word as if they're playing a fun game of "What comes next?", and before you know it, they’ve written a whole paragraph!