Development · Term
Embedding
An embedding is a numerical representation of text, an image, or other content that places items with similar meaning close together, allowing software to compare them by meaning rather than by exact wording.
Embeddings are what make semantic search and retrieval-augmented generation possible: a question and a relevant passage end up near each other even when they share no keywords, so the right source can be retrieved without matching exact terms.
They are not a store of truth. An embedding captures similarity, so a retrieved passage may be topically close while still failing to support the specific claim being made — which is why retrieved sources still need checking.
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