MIT assistant professor and CSAIL principal investigator Jacob Andreas, a leading figure in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, recently shared his insights on the potential and challenges of large language models (LLMs). His views offer valuable perspectives for domain-specific Q&A systems that use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with the latest data from various sources.
Andreas highlighted the ability of LLMs to reason about extensive documents and chunks of text, a significant advancement over previous models. However, he pointed out that these models lack the ability to comprehend the grounded context in which human language production and comprehension occur. They are not immediately sensitive to the broader social context that informs our language use, nor do they understand the temporal context.
This limitation is particularly relevant for domain-specific Q&A systems, as these systems often need to understand and respond to queries in a contextually appropriate manner. The challenge lies in providing these models with the necessary contextual information.
The phenomenon of in-context learning, where LLMs can learn from a small dataset and generate plausible outputs, is a fundamentally different way of doing machine learning. This capability allows a single general-purpose model to handle multiple machine learning tasks without needing to train a new model for each task.
For domain-specific Q&A systems, this means that a single model could potentially handle a wide range of tasks, making the system more efficient and versatile. However, understanding how this in-context learning phenomenon occurs is still an area of active research.
LLMs are known to hallucinate facts and assert inaccuracies confidently, which poses a significant challenge for applications where factual accuracy is critical. Andreas believes that this issue arises partly due to the architecture of these models and the nature of their training data.
For domain-specific Q&A systems, this issue is of paramount importance. These systems often need to provide accurate and reliable information, and the tendency of LLMs to generate incorrect facts could undermine their effectiveness.
The pace of progress in LLMs, from GPT-2 to GPT-3 to GPT-4, has been rapid. Andreas believes that while there are challenges related to truthfulness and coherence, these are not fundamental limitations of LLMs. He is optimistic that these issues can be overcome and that LLMs can be used to automate many tasks, freeing up society from a lot of unpleasant chores.
For domain-specific Q&A systems, this suggests that while there are challenges to be addressed, the potential benefits of LLMs are significant. As these models continue to improve, they could become increasingly valuable tools for automating tasks and providing accurate, contextually appropriate responses to queries.
Source: 3 Questions: Jacob Andreas on large language models