Scientists Say: Large language model

algorithm: A group of rules or procedures for solving a problem in a series of steps. Algorithms are used in mathematics and in computer programs for figuring out solutions.

artificial intelligence: A type of knowledge-based decision-making exhibited by machines or computers. The term also refers to the field of study in which scientists try to create machines or computer software capable of intelligent behavior.

bias: The tendency to hold a particular perspective or preference that favors some thing, some group or some choice. Scientists often “blind” subjects to the details of a test (don’t tell them what it is) so that their biases will not affect the results.

computer program: A set of instructions that a computer uses to perform some analysis or computation. The writing of these instructions is known as computer programming.

data: Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis but not necessarily organized in a way that gives them meaning. For digital information (the type stored by computers), those data typically are numbers stored in a binary code, portrayed as strings of zeros and ones.

information: (as opposed to data) Facts provided or trends learned about something or someone, often as a result of studying data.

intelligence: The ability to collect and apply knowledge and skills.

large language model: (in computing) Language models are a type of machine learning. They attempt to predict upcoming words (in text or speech) and then present those predictions using words that almost anyone should understand. The models learn to do this by reviewing large quantities of text or speech. As their name would imply, large language models train using enormous troves of data. They organize and make sense of those data using “neural nets” — a scheme patterned a bit off of the pathways of nerves in the human brain (and for whose development the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded). Large language models don’t just learn words, but also phrases made of many words. They can even learn from the context in which a new phrase and idea is worded (meaning the words that accompany those phrases or in which those phrases have been embedded).

model: A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes. Or an individual that is meant to display how something would work in or look on others.

online: (n.) On the internet. (adj.) A term for what can be found or accessed on the internet.

social media: Digital media that allow people to connect with each other (often anonymously) and to share information. Examples include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp.

system: A network of parts that together work to achieve some function. For instance, the blood, vessels and heart are primary components of the human body’s circulatory system. Similarly, trains, platforms, tracks, roadway signals and overpasses are among the potential components of a nation’s railway system. System can even be applied to the processes or ideas that are part of some method or ordered set of procedures for getting a task done.

tool: An object that a person or other animal makes or obtains and then uses to carry out some purpose such as reaching food, defending itself or grooming.

verify: (n. verification) To demonstrate or confirm in some way that a particular claim or suspicion is true.