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LLMs Unplugged is a set of hands-on teaching resources that demonstrate how LLM (Large Language Model)A language model trained on a very large amount of text, with billions of parameters. The hand-built models in these lessons are tiny language models; ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are large ones. The core principles are identical. The difference is scale. View in glossary work—no computers or coding
required. You count word patterns in a text, record them as tally marks on
GridA sheet of grid paper with the vocabulary written down the side and across the top. Training fills each cell with tally marks for how often the row's word was followed by the column's word; generation reads a row and rolls against it. It's the original LLMs Unplugged apparatus. View in glossary or physical piles of paper CutoutsPrinted cards, one per word pair in the text, each showing a previous word in a box and the word that followed it. Spread on a table they are the model: to generate, find a card whose boxed word matches your current word and read off its next word. Common pairs appear on more cards, so picking by eye samples in proportion. View in glossary , then roll dice to generate new text from
those patterns. After building a Language modelA system that predicts what text comes next, using patterns learned from training data. Your hand-built grid, a cutouts spread, a booklet, and a room holding search sheets are all language models. View in glossary by hand, something clicks: you
see that tools like Chatbot (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini)A product that wraps an LLM in a conversation. ChatGPT is OpenAI's, Claude is Anthropic's, Gemini is Google's, and there are many others. On this site we often name ChatGPT or Claude as shorthand for any of them: the concepts apply equally to every modern LLM chatbot, whichever one you use. View in glossary work
using the same basic principles, just at a vastly larger scale.
Since ChatGPT arrived in November 2022, (most)
everyone's using , yet most people have no
real mental model of what's actually happening under the hood. Understanding how these
systems work—not through metaphor or handwaving but through direct
experience—is what we're all about. These resources don't tell you or your students
what to think about the role of AI in society; they give you a grounding for having that
discussion, informed by having done it yourself. No coding, no maths beyond counting and
percentages, and it works from primary school to the boardroom. More in the
FAQ.
Can it work with a whole hall?
In a workshop everyone builds their own model, but the same idea works as a fifteen-minute
talk. At the ANU Visionaries Among Us Showcase in August 2026 we handed each of about 360
people a search sheet, and the hall spent four
minutes writing a sentence by show of hands, one word at a time. The slides, sheets and
running order are on the talk page.
Who made this?
LLMs Unplugged is a Cybernetic Studio
project created by Dr. Ben Swift (PhD Computer
Science, 2012) at the ANU School of Cybernetics. But if you're worried that
you'll need a PhD in Computer Science to understand it, rest assured—the
whole point of these resources is to demonstrate that you don't. There's more on the
lineage, from CS Unplugged back to Shannon, on the about page.
Contact
If you have questions, success stories about using these materials, or would like to
discuss adaptations or improvements you've made, get in touch at ben.swift@anu.edu.au. If you'd like to hear
about what cool stuff is going on at the School of Cybernetics, then sign up for the
mailing list
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