Glossary: Letter A

Advanced Audio Coding: a lossy audio compression format designed as the successor to MP3. It delivers better sound quality at similar or lower bitrates and is the default format for Apple Music and Yo...

AbiWord Document: the native XML-based document format for the AbiWord open-source word processor.

Audio Codec 3: the lossy audio compression format used in Dolby Digital surround sound. Standard in DVDs, Blu-rays, digital television, and cinema.

Microsoft Access Database (2007+): the current database format for Microsoft Access, replacing MDB with enhanced encryption and multi-valued field support.

A proprietary archive format offering high compression ratios. Popular in the late 1990s but now largely replaced by 7z and RAR.

Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability: a set of properties that guarantee database transactions are processed reliably. ACID compliance ensures that data remains accurate and consistent even i...

A 3D modeling kernel file format by Spatial (Dassault Systemes). SAT is the text format; SAB is the binary variant.

Adobe Illustrator Artwork: the native file format for Adobe Illustrator, a vector graphics editor. It is based on EPS or PDF and is widely used in graphic design and illustration.

An autonomous AI system that can perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals. AI agents combine language models with tool use, planning, and memory to perform...

The challenge of ensuring that AI systems pursue goals and behaviors that are consistent with human intentions and values. Alignment research seeks to solve problems like reward hacking, goal misspeci...

The study and implementation of moral principles guiding the development and deployment of AI systems. AI ethics addresses issues such as fairness, accountability, transparency, privacy, bias, and the...

A research field focused on ensuring AI systems operate safely, reliably, and in alignment with human values. AI safety encompasses alignment research, robustness testing, adversarial defense, interpr...

Audio Interchange File Format: an uncompressed audio format developed by Apple, based on the IFF format. It is the Apple equivalent of WAV for professional audio production.

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML: a set of web development techniques that allows web pages to communicate with a server asynchronously without reloading the entire page. Modern implementations typical...

Apple Lossless Audio Codec: a lossless audio compression format developed by Apple. It reduces file size by about 40-60% while preserving bit-perfect audio quality.

Additive Manufacturing File: an XML-based format for 3D printing that supports color, materials, lattices, and constellations (assemblies) unlike STL.

Adaptive Multi-Rate: an audio compression format optimized for speech encoding. Standard in GSM and 3G mobile networks for voice calls.

Monkey's Audio: a lossless audio compression format offering higher compression than FLAC but with slower encoding/decoding. Popular in Asia for archival music storage.

Application Programming Interface: a set of protocols, routines, and tools for building software applications that specifies how software components should interact with each other.

Android Package Kit: the file format for distributing and installing applications on Android devices.