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Natural language processing
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New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text
Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing.
Tiny Language Models Come of Age
To better understand how neural networks learn to simulate writing, researchers trained simpler versions on synthetic children’s stories.
Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact
Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach.
Secret Messages Can Hide in AI-Generated Media
In steganography, an ordinary message masks the presence of a secret communication. Humans can never do it perfectly, but a new study shows it’s possible for machines.
Chatbots Don’t Know What Stuff Isn’t
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
A New Approach to Computation Reimagines Artificial Intelligence
By imbuing enormous vectors with semantic meaning, we can get machines to reason more abstractly — and efficiently — than before.
The Unpredictable Abilities Emerging From Large AI Models
Large language models like ChatGPT are now big enough that they’ve started to display startling, unpredictable behaviors.
To Teach Computers Math, Researchers Merge AI Approaches
Large language models still struggle with basic reasoning tasks. Two new papers that apply machine learning to math provide a blueprint for how that could change.
Machines Learn Better if We Teach Them the Basics
A wave of research improves reinforcement learning algorithms by pre-training them as if they were human.