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For this extra-credit assignment, we will do something entirely different: reading articles and writing a response essay. We will also cover one last important topic: the latest development in computational linguistics, NLP, and AI.
Having spent the semester focused on acquiring foundational knowledge, now is a good time to step back and reflect on the larger picture. If you haven't heard, Artificial Intelligence is transforming our society and the world, and language technologies are at the front and center. Incidentally, there are tons of fascinating books and in-depth reports being written about this topic: they are intended for the curious general public, but nevertheless provide a wealth of technical details and insights for us fledgling computational linguists.
I know you're all thinking ChatGPT and LLMs, but we have to start with the beginning of this revolution, which was kick-started with the development of deep learning and neural net technologies. This NYT article from 2016 presents a close-up view:
- The Great A.I. Awakening (December 14, 2016; Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New York Times Magazine)
Fast forward to 2022, ChatGPT and LLMs (Large Language Models) burst into the scene and completely changed the landscape. First, we must understand how they work. The article below does a marvelous job of unpacking their technical underpinnings. As a bonus, you'll get to see how one creates an LLM model of... Jane Austen!
- Watch an A.I. Learn to Write by Reading Nothing but Jane Austen (April 27, 2023; Aatish Bhatia, The New York Times)
By now, you have seen plenty of media coverage on how LLMs and Generative AI are taking over the world. But what does this mean for linguists, the field of NLP, and our society at large? Here's an article featuring Emily Bender, a computational linguist emerging as a leading voice.
- You Are Not a Parrot (March 1, 2023; Elizabeth Weil with Emily Bender, The New York Magazine)
Preparation:
- Some of the readings are LONG! Make sure to set aside enough time. They will be anything but boring though -- I promise!
- "The Great A.I. Awakening" in particular is super long. I know you will be tempted, urm, to have ChatGPT generate a summary and go with it. Don't do it! It will keep you from getting an immersive experience of this fascinating historical account. If you're really short on time, I'd rather you skim through some sections focusing on older historical background.
- For NYT, you can create a free-access account using your Pitt email. Some news outlets implement a pay wall. I recommend saving the web pages as a PDF document on your computer.
Your essay, what to write, and how:
- 650 words minimum, MS Word of PDF format.
- To state the obvious: do not use LLMs to generate your essay wholesale, which is cheating. Non-native writers of English can use them on a limited basis, only to correct grammatical mistakes in their draft. (Actually, I'd rather read your unfiltered words *with* grammatical mistakes.)
- Don't just summarize the articles! Your personal reflections and perspectives should be the focus.
- Try and integrate the knowledge you learned in class, including the lecture content and readings from Jurafsky & Martin and also Language and Computers.
- Also, the technologies prominently featured in the reading (Deep Learning, neural networks, Google Translate, BERT, GPT-3, ...) are the absolute cutting-edge, industrial-grade NLP technologies that go much beyond what we can properly learn in the classroom in one short semester. But learning about them is part of the goals of this assignment.
- One last thing. Reading the articles, you may notice the presence of tension between voices from NLP scholars and those from journalists. We shouldn't automatically dismiss publications written by non-academics; these articles are all clearly backed by extensive research. However, know that ultimately the authors are reporters who do not have deep expertise and also are writing for a general audience in the context of an intense societal hype around AI. That is to say: you should keep a critical eye.
Share your essay and comments:
Extra credit:
- You will earn up to 13 extra-credit points towards your HW total. That's a boost of 1% on your total grade!
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