In plain words: A short textbook that teaches the math behind generative AI by building each idea step by step, from simple data compression to today's image and text generators. It shows how these families grow from the same core ideas, keeping the equations but no code.
Abstract
This book provides a compact, derivation-oriented introduction to the mathematical foundations of modern generative artificial intelligence. Rather than surveying every recent architecture or implementation detail, it develops a coherent route through the ideas connecting major families of generative models, from PCA, probabilistic PCA, variational autoencoders, and diffusion models to normalising flows, autoregressive factorisations, GANs, Wasserstein GANs, and energy-based models. The aim is to make the structure of generative modelling more accessible without removing the mathematical substance needed to understand how these models are derived and related. The book is intended as a foundation-building primer for mathematically curious researchers, practitioners, and students.
Tianhua Chen
arXiv:2605.29713 · cs.LG, cs.AI · submitted May 28, 2026 · updated Sep 8, 2026
abstract · pdf · html · Revised preprint version, 195 pages. Added visual explanations throughout. Comments and corrections are welcome