Glossary

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= Glossary =

This page aims to define terms that are often used by the community and may not be immediately accessible to newcomers.

Asterism (⁂)
Typography

A group of three asterisks brought together as a single symbol. Usually used to separate stories in the finetune, making it a powerful separator. Similar, but not identical to a Dinkus, which is weaker.

Author’s Notes (A/N)
Text Injection, Feature

A type of Text Injection that is usually situated three newlines from the bottom of the context. It is traditionally used to hold information such as author, genre and style tags, but can be used similarly to Memory.

Banned Tokens
Generation, Feature

A token the AI is not allowed to generate. Instead, the AI will use the next most likely token.

Brackets
Typography

Shorthand for Square Brackets, which are these symbols: [ ]. They are part of the finetune data, and used to contain metadata about the text files. They are traditionally used in Injected Text to separate it from story text.

Branch
Generation, Writing

A version of the story. When you redo, or undo then edit, you create a new branch. Think of it like time travel.

Calliope (model)
AI

A finetuned version of the GPT-NEO 2.7B model. It is inferior in creative performance to Sigurd, but very lightweight and can run on cheaper, slower hardware. It was used by NovelAI during the Pre-Alpha and Alpha stages.

Cascading Activation
Injected Text, Generation

A flag that tells a Lorebook entry to check for other text injections (Memory, Author's Note) for its keys, rather than only the story text.

Caveman Format
Writing, Technique

Writing while removing most grammatical words, and focusing only on words that carry semantic meaning. As an example,  would become. It is used for lorebook entries to reinforce connections between subjects and objects and reduce token use at the expense of writing quality.

Context
Injected Text, Generation

All the text that the AI has in its memory before it attempts to generate more text. This is all the activated injected text, plus all the story text that can fit inside the context window.

Context Window
AI, Limit

GPT-J and GPT-NEO both share a limit of 2048 tokens, or ~9000 Latin Alphabet characters used as a person would need to communicate in a natural manner. This is the maximum memory that the AI can use. On Tablet tier, the window is 1024 Tokens.

Context Viewer
Injected Text, Feature

A tool that lets you visualize all text injections, and what the context window contains. This can help diagnose generation problems due to poor text injection settings.

Dataset
AI

A batch of text files, used for fine tuning or module training. It must be presented in a specific format for best results.

Dinkus (***)
Typography

A set of three asterisks in a row. Often used to separate large sections. Breaks the current event sequence before resuming generation. Different versions exist but are rare.

End of Sampling (EOS)
AI, Generation

A marker used to tell the AI to stop generating. Generally, it is an uncommon symbol that would not appear unless the user 'trains' the AI to use it regularly. Useful for generating text similar to chat logs and other unorthodox forms, or simply to stop on sentence ending markers.

End of Text Token (<|endoftext|>)
AI

A token that was used to designate the end of a text file, so that the training routine of the AI can proceed to the next file. It can rarely appear during generation, this is simply an artifact and can be removed.

Entry (or Lorebook Entry)
Text Injection

An entry for an element of your story, as part of its lorebook. It has text data, insertion settings, and keys that will activate it if present.

Ephemeral Context
Text Injection, Feature

A form of Text Injection that is only active for a number of actions, after which it disappears. Has a very specific syntax that no other feature uses.

Finetune
AI

If you consider the AI as a bunch of knobs and sliders, this is the act of adjusting them in order to make the AI's output more "fitting" for your purposes. This is done on expensive, powerful machines or servers and not really something you do yourself.

Flatten
Feature

An aggressive form of trimming. Eliminates all branches, which leaves the entire story as one solid block of text.

Format (or Lorebook Format)
Writing

A way to present the information to the AI. It can range from writing things as you would in a normal essay, to using formats similar to code, to many other different types.

Generation (or AI Generation)
Generation

After the AI receives the context window's data, it tries to continue the story from there. The text you receive from the AI is the Generation.

Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT)
AI

A neural network that takes the form of a large amount of vector-space equations. Every number is a token, which is a text fragment that appeared in the AI's training data. The fragments, and their relationships, are analyzed, and a network of "relationships" between all these fragments are created. The goal is to create a network which can replicate human language in order to convincingly generate human-like text.

As it is pre-trained, it does not learn from its input. Only what it has been trained with. Training is an extremely costly operation that requires rare, expensive, and difficult to set up hardware, making it a costly service. These models also require powerful Graphical Processing Units, especially units equipped with Tensor Cores, which are ideal for vector space math (like raytracing!) These GPUs are expensive and use a lot of power, which also makes running a GPT model expensive.

Inline Generation
Feature, Generation

An action performed by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Enter or ⌘ + Shift + Enter, with the text cursor located in the main text box. This will generate a response where the text cursor is, rather than at the end. Content after the text cursor is ignored by the AI.

Insertion
Text Injection

Insertion is the name used by NovelAI to denote Text Injection, as in, text that is added to the context window before sending it to the AI. Author's Note, Memory, Lorebook, Ephemeral context, etc, are all Insertions.

Lore Generator
Feature, Generation

A feature of the Lorebook that uses the current module (and if desired, the Memory, Author's Note, and other lorebook entries) to generate lore for concepts, objects, people, factions, and much more.

Lorebook
Text Injection, User Content

A database of entries, triggered by keys. If an entry's key is found, then the text of the entry is injected into the context, based on its settings. Works identically to other text injections, just with more fine control over where it ends up.

Lorebook Keys
Text Injection

A text "trigger" which activates a Lorebook entry if found in the text. Can be anything, from a name, to a symbol.

Loss (or Training Loss)
AI

Loss is a term used in Machine Learning to determine if what the AI's output is close to what it was expected. Loss in itself isn't good or bad, simply a measure of the AI's deviation to its expectations. For the purposes of creative writing, some deviation is preferred.

Loss Graph
AI

A graphical representation of the module's loss after every step of the AI's reading and training. A good 'level' for loss is very subjective, generally, you want to avoid the curve following a path that goes too low or too high, as both have their own issues.

Memory
Text Injection

A piece of text that is inserted near the top of the story. Traditionally used to keep track of broad context elements and current events to help the AI stay on track. Works the same as Author's Note otherwise.

Model
AI

A code base which constitutes the structure on which the neural network is built. GPT-NEO and GPT-J are both model codebases. GPT-J 6B, however, is a weight, which is a pre-trained model that possesses 6 billion parameters. Parameters are the number of connections between existing tokens.

Module (or AI Module)
AI, User Content

Known as a soft prompt in the research community. This is a batch of vector math that is sent directly to the AI, ignoring tokenization completely. It takes the same amount of space in the context window as 20 tokens, but is not a token by itself. Think of it as a mini finetune based on a specific group of texts that does not require re-training the AI as a whole, but still changes what the AI will produce.

Module Training
AI

Sending text files to NovelAI's model training program in order to produce a module based on their content. Works similarly to fine-tuning a model, but on a smaller scale.

Nucleus Sampling (Top-P)
AI, Sampling

Sampling which selects a set of tokens, based on the percentile chance of them appearing. Starting from the most likely, it adds up probabilities until it hits its setting. Sampling then ends.

Order of Insertion
Text Injection

A setting which determines the order that text injections are performed. Think of it as a stack: The highest number goes first.

Output
AI

Synonymous with AI Response or Generation. Effectively, what the AI makes based on what you give it.

Perspective (or POV)
Writing

Whether or not the narration is done in first (I/me), second (You), or third person(he/she/it).

Phrase Bias
Feature, Generation

A feature which influences the AI to increase or reduce the likelihood of some tokens or phrases appearing. Good for enforcing consistency or reducing things you don't want without outright bans.

Placeholder
Feature

A text element that must be filled by a scenario's user upon import.

Preamble
Generation

An asterism (⁂) and a linebreak inserted in the context window before generation. It tells the AI "this is the start of something new", which can help reducing the feeling of "being in the middle of something" and sticking to your prompt a little more closely.

Prefix
Text Injection

A small piece of text appended to the beginning of a Text Injection when it is placed in the context window. Helps with separating it from other entries if you use brackets or newlines.

Preset (or Generation Preset)
AI, User Content

A batch of settings, such as sampling and randomness, that can be saved and shared to other users.

Prompt
Writing

The first piece of story text that you provide to the AI, before any generation has been performed.

Prose
Writing

Writing like you speak. Prose is the opposite of Verse which follows a structure, meter, or both.

Randomness (or Temperature)
AI

A setting that adjusts the likelihood of the tokens available to the AI after sampling, so that rare tokens actually have a chance of appearing.

Redo Tree
Feature

When you have performed one or more Retries or edits for a story step, this button with a number next to Redo will list all the Retries and edits you have done, so you can pick the one you prefer.

Repetition Penalty
AI

A setting that decreases a token's chance of appearing if it has already appeared in the current generation. Helps reduce repetitiveness.

Reserved Tokens
Text Injection

How many tokens' worth of space are saved for the current Text Injection. Highest priority reserves first.

Retry
Feature

Deleting the previous AI generation and asking the AI to send a new one. If you made any edits, this is just like clicking Send.

Sampling
AI, Sampling

Selecting a limited pool of tokens by doing some math on their probabilities. This helps focus the AI and make Randomness more useful by spreading it over less possible tokens.

Scenario
User Content

A story that was exported for sharing. It can have placeholders: elements that must be filled in when imported by the user, such as names and so on. This allows for easier personalization than a normal prompt. It can also contain a lorebook and generation settings.

Search Range
Feature

A lorebook setting that decides how deep in the story text it will go looking for keys before it stops. Helpful if you mention a lot of things but only want to focus on very recent elements.

Sigurd (model)
AI

A finetuned version of the GPT-J 6B model. It is superior in creative performance to Calliope, but more expensive to train and run. It is used by NovelAI during the Beta stage.

Step
Writing

Every time a generation is performed, the story advances to its next step. Edits after a generation count as another step as well.

Storage
Feature

An encrypted database of your stories. Can be local, or on NovelAI's servers.

Story
Writing

The content in the text box in the middle of your NovelAI window is "the story text." Every other piece of text fed into the AI is Text Injection.

Story Tag
Feature

A tag applied to a story so you can search for it easier.

Stream Responses
AI, Feature

Displays tokens as they are generated rather than dumping the entire response on you all at once, as if you could watch the AI writing it.

Subcontext
Text Injection

A group of Lorebook Entries that are injected as one block with its own insertion settings.

Suffix
Text Injection

Identical to Prefix, but it is added to the end of the entry.

Tail-Free Sampling (TFS)
AI, Sampling

A "Tail" is basically all the tokens that are really not appropriate, such as random garbage or extreme outliers. Most sampling methods are very aggressive and only keep the absolute best tokens. Tail-Free attempts to only cut off the tail so that the pool of possible tokens is bigger and creative, without keeping the really bad tokens.

Text Adventure Module
AI, Feature

A module designed to be played with DO and SAY inputs, similar to old Text Adventure games like Zork. Uses a different interface where inputs and outputs are clearly delineated.

Theme
Feature

A JSON file with some CSS thrown in it, which tells NovelAI's page how to look like. Allows for considerable customization of text colors, backgrounds, and many other things.

Tier
Subscription

Tablet, Scroll and Opus are the three Tiers that you can pay for. Generally, Opus has access to features early and some extras, while Tablet has a limited context window.

Token
AI

A fragment of text that is turned into a mathematical vector (basically, a pair of numbers). The Neural Network of the AI is built on the relationships between all these tokens, which attempts to mathematically reproduce Human language.

Token Budget
Text Injection

How many tokens are allowed to be used at all by the entry. Generally this is always set to the max window size, and priority takes care of the rest.

Token ID
AI

Remember how every token is a vector? Every vector has a number which serves as its identifying number. For example, [198] is the "new line" character, so banning it prevents the AI from creating any new lines of its own.

Tokenization
AI

Turning raw text into tokens. The AI is unable to read pure text data, and must turn it into tokens first.

Tokensafe
Writing, Technique

A technique to present information to the AI, a "format". It formats lorebook entries by using headers followed by singular adjectives or nominal groups separated by slashes.

Top-K
Sampling

A basic form of sampling that selects the K-most likely tokens. A top-K of 10 thus selects the top 10 most likely tokens.

Top-Kek
Sampling

A sampling method developed by Kurumuz. Which is now known as Top-A.

Top-P
Sampling

Synonym of Nucleus Sampling. P stands for Probability.

Train (a Model)
AI

A GPT model is "pre-trained" on a large corpus of text files in order to create its token database, and analyze the relationships between the tokens. This takes a considerable amount of processing power and time, and is usually performed on very large, powerful servers or cloud servers.

Trim
Text Injection, Feature

Disambiguation:

• Trimming Entries: Any Text Injection can be trimmed down to the Newline, Sentence, or Token, if it is unable to fit in the context window in full.

• Trim Trailing Spaces: Removes any space left at the very end of the story text, if it exists. Most tokens begin with a space, so leaving one can cause strange generations since most tokens aren't able to appear.

• Trim AI responses: A deprecated feature that would cut off the AI generation at the latest sentence delimiter. Nowadays, this is "Continue Response to End of Sentence" in the Account Settings.

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