What is a Context Window?
The amount of text or information an AI model can consider at one time when generating responses.
Definition
A Context Window is the maximum amount of text, tokens, or information that an AI model can process and consider simultaneously when understanding input and generating responses. It represents the model's "working memory" capacity.
Purpose
Context windows define how much conversational history, document content, or background information an AI can maintain awareness of, directly impacting the quality and relevance of responses in longer interactions.
Function
Context windows work as a sliding buffer - when new information exceeds the window size, older information is "forgotten" to make room. Larger context windows enable more coherent long-form conversations and document processing.
Example
A model with a 4,000-token context window can process about 3,000 words at once. In a long conversation, it will only remember the most recent exchanges that fit within this limit, potentially forgetting earlier context.
Related
Connected to Tokens, Model Architecture, Memory Systems, Long-context Models, and Computational Efficiency in AI.
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