{"id":7100,"date":"2021-08-03T09:57:17","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T08:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/?p=7100"},"modified":"2021-08-03T09:57:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T08:57:17","slug":"on-the-dangers-of-stochastic-parrots-can-language-models-be-too-big","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/?p=7100","title":{"rendered":"On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are few better ways of spending an hour than doing so listening to <a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/ebender\/\">Professor Emily Bender<\/a>, University of Waashington, taking about language models in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=N5c2X8vhfBE\">virtual presentation<\/a> hosted by the Alan Turing Institute on 8 July 2021. The main topics in this excellent lecture (content, presentation and discussion) were<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are ever larger language models (LM) inevitable or necessary<\/li>\n<li>What costs are associated with this research direction and what should we consider before pursing it?<\/li>\n<li>Do the field of natural language processing or the public that it serves in fact need larger LMs?<\/li>\n<li>If so, how can we pursue this research direction while mitigating its associated risks?<\/li>\n<li>If not, what do we need instead?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Well worth a couple of cups (or glasses) of your favourite drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are few better ways of spending an hour than doing so listening to Professor Emily Bender, University of Waashington, taking about language models in a virtual presentation hosted by the Alan Turing Institute on 8 July 2021. The main topics in this excellent lecture (content, presentation and discussion) were Are ever larger language models&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/?p=7100\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,227],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feature-article","category-summer-2021","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive-irsg.bcs.org\/informer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}