language model

noun

plural language models

: a mathematical model (see model entry 1 sense 3) that analyzes a corpus of text in order to accurately represent the relationships between words

We have tremendous freedom to put words in any order we like. The computer has to have some kind of handle, a language model. It has to figure how likely any particular word is to pop up at any time.

—Robert Mercer, quoted in Chicago Tribune

also : software that uses a language model to generate text (such as responses to queries or prompts)

For example, given the task of analyzing the sentiment of the sentence 'I missed the bus today,' researchers could continue with the prompt 'I felt so [blank]' and ask a language model to fill in the blank with an emotion.

—Kyle Wiggers

see also large language model

Examples of language model in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Right now, most people encounter Gemini language models through the Gemini chatbot. —Emilia David, The Verge, 9 Apr. 2024

Robotics firms like Figure are already taking advanced language models and integrating them into bipedal, humanoid machines capable of performing tasks and holding a conversation. —Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 4 Apr. 2024

Other companies with their own language models are trending towards charging a fee for their chatbots. —Janhoi McGregor, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024

The data trove from the human players was then fed into a language model of the kind that powers modern chatbots, which had picked up an ability to process language by digesting a huge database of text. —Will Knight, WIRED, 13 Mar. 2024

Samsung’s aggressive marketing for its Galaxy AI language model meant that the One UI 6.1 update has made a much bigger splash than any other before it. —Janhoi McGregor, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024

But not only size matters when creating a language model. —Will Knight, WIRED, 27 Mar. 2024

But in 2022, a team of Google researchers showed that asking language models to generate step-by-step solutions enabled the models to solve problems that had previously seemed beyond their reach. —Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 21 Mar. 2024

Meta’s flagship model, Llama 2, is free to download and use—but its policies forbid deploying it to improve another AI language model or to develop an application with more than 700 million monthly users. —Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 18 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1976, in the meaning defined above