Sophie Hao

Sophie Hao will speak at the UC San Diego Linguistics Department on Thursday, January 30th at 9:00 a.m. in AP&M 4301.

Towards a Linguistics of Large Language Models

Large language models (LLMs) are a transformative technology with language at its core, but whose design is not grounded in linguistic theory. This talk sketches the foundations of an LLM linguistics: a scientific study of “language,” as it is instantiated by LLMs. By comparing the architectures, representations, and behavior of LLMs and other computational models with those that have been theorized for and observed in human language, I show how LLMs provide a depiction of language that is broadly realistic, yet ultimately imperfect due to intrinsic limitations of the techniques and algorithms used to create them. I conclude the talk by showcasing opportunities offered by LLM linguistics for all linguists to make broad social impact while using language technologies to advance our understanding of language.