AI engineering glossary · Transformers LLM architecture
What is autoregressive generation?
Autoregressive generation (also called Autoregressive decoding): Producing a sequence one element at a time, where each new element is conditioned on all the ones generated before it and is then fed back as input for the next step. Each token needs a full forward pass, so long outputs take proportionally longer.
Autoregressive generation: an example
To write a 200-token reply, an LLM performs 200 sequential forward passes, appending one token each time.
Related terms
More Transformers LLM architecture terms
Where you learn it
Autoregressive generation is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.