Final answer:
The max function in programming languages returns the maximum value out of a given set of values.
Step-by-step explanation:
The max function in programming languages such as Python returns the maximum value out of a given set of values. It does not return the total max of all values. For example, if you have a list of numbers [5, 8, 3, 9, 2], using the max function will return 9, which is the highest value in the list.