MBMACHINE BRIEF
AnalysisOriginalsModelsResearchStartupsTools
Newsletter

Navigate

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Newsletter
  • Search
  • Sitemap

Content

  • Original Analysis
  • Blog
  • Glossary
  • Best Lists
  • AI Tools

Categories

  • Models
  • Research
  • Startups
  • Robotics
  • Policy
  • Business
  • Analysis
  • Originals

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
Machine Brief|

2026 Machine Brief. All rights reserved.

  1. Home
  2. /Glossary
  3. /Emergent Behavior
Back to Glossary
ai

Emergent Behavior

Capabilities that appear in AI models at scale without being explicitly trained for.

Definition

Capabilities that appear in AI models at scale without being explicitly trained for. As models get bigger, they suddenly gain abilities like in-context learning, chain-of-thought reasoning, and translation between languages they weren't specifically trained on. Debated topic — some argue it's just gradual improvement made visible.

Share this term

Related Terms

Scaling Laws

Mathematical relationships showing how AI model performance improves predictably with more data, compute, and parameters.

In-Context Learning

A model's ability to learn new tasks simply from examples provided in the prompt, without any weight updates.

Large Language Model

An AI model with billions of parameters trained on massive text datasets.

Activation Function

A mathematical function applied to a neuron's output that introduces non-linearity into the network.

Adam Optimizer

An optimization algorithm that combines the best parts of two other methods — AdaGrad and RMSProp.

AGI

Artificial General Intelligence.

Explore More

Latest NewsAI NewsMarketsAnalysisFull Glossary

Want to learn more about AI?

Browse our complete glossary or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest AI news and insights.

Browse GlossarySubscribe to Newsletter