Explaining Vector Databases in 3 Levels of Difficulty
<p>Vector databases have been getting a lot of attention recently, with many vector database startups raising millions in funding.</p>
<p>Chances are you have probably already heard of them but didn’t really care about them until now —at least, that’s what I guess why you are here now…</p>
<p>If you are here just for the short answer, lets jump right in:</p>
<h1>Definition: What is a Vector Database?</h1>
<p>A vector database is a type of database that stores and manages unstructured data, such as text, images, or audio, in vector embeddings (high-dimensional vectors) to make it easy to find and retrieve similar objects quickly.</p>
<p>If that definition only caused more confusion, then let’s go step by step. This article is inspired by <a href="https://www.wired.com/video/series/5-levels" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">WIRED’s “5 Levels” Video Series</a> and unpacks what vector databases are in the following three levels of difficulty:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/explaining-vector-databases-in-3-levels-of-difficulty-fc392e48ab78#8273" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Explain It Like I’m 5</a></li>
<li><a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/explaining-vector-databases-in-3-levels-of-difficulty-fc392e48ab78#ffae" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Explaining Vector Databases to Digital Natives and Tech Enthusiasts</a></li>
<li><a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/explaining-vector-databases-in-3-levels-of-difficulty-fc392e48ab78#61cf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Explaining Vector Databases to Engineers and Data Professionals</a></li>
</ul>
<h1>Vector Databases: Explain It Like I’m 5 (ELI5)</h1>
<p>This is slightly off-topic, but do you know what I don’t understand?</p>
<p><a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/explaining-vector-databases-in-3-levels-of-difficulty-fc392e48ab78"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>