If you’ve heard “neural network” thrown around in tech circles, you probably imagined something biological. The term neuron can make beginners think they need to understand brain biology to work with AI. They don’t. But the confusion about what a neuron actually does — and how it differs from a function you’d write in code — is real. And that difference matters [1][2].
What’s a Neuron, Really? A neuron in AI is a computational unit. Stripped down, it’s a thing that takes inputs, does math, and produces an output. Sounds like a function, right? It kind of is. But that’s where the similarity ends.