part 1 in one sitting

Tiny AI

Build a tiny ChatGPT from scratch. No CS degree. A browser and a free Colab.

Part 1 is the bootcamp: one or two hours in a browser, nothing to install. Parts 2 and 3 are the rabbit hole, several hours each, and worth it.

by Joel Sadler, PhD · built in collaboration with Claude · adapted with attribution from DS 6042 (Prof. Daniel Graham, UVA) and Andrej Karpathy

dose xrelurelueffect ŷ

Part 1 · Goldilocks

1 to 2 hours, browser only. Meet a neuron with a real job: get a patient's dose just right. Train it yourself with rotary knobs in a 3D brick clinic, then watch backprop turn the knobs for you.

start here →

Part 2 · microGPT

Several hours, free Colab. The whole transformer, traced by hand: tokens, attention, and a working GPT small enough to read in one sitting. Ends with the Forbidden Fruit alignment game.

open the walkthrough →

Part 3 · nanochat

Several hours, free Colab GPU. Train a chatbot that is genuinely yours, with checkpoints saved to your own Drive. Then talk to it.

train yours →