Natural language processing

Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a language network in the human brain — and has found some parallels to LLMs.

If language is what makes us human, what does it mean now that large language models have gained “metalinguistic” abilities?

Naomi Saphra thinks that most research into language models focuses too much on the finished product. She’s mining the history of their training for insights into why these systems work the way they do.

Fundamental technique lets researchers use a big, expensive “teacher” model to train a “student” model for less.

AI may sound like a human, but that doesn’t mean that AI learns like a human. In this episode, Ellie Pavlick explains why understanding how LLMs can process language could unlock deeper insights into both AI and the human mind.

Technology has forever served as science’s toolbox. But now that AI is being used to develop questions and methods as well, some scientists wonder what their role is going to become.

AI researchers are using techniques inspired by neuroscience to study how language models work — and to reveal how perplexing they can be.

Researchers in “natural language processing” tried to tame human language. Then came the transformer.

A simple primer to the 19 most important concepts in artificial intelligence.