Large Language Model - Friend or Foe? Large Language Model Research for Critical Applications

Please join us for this Research Seminar with Stuart Middleton, an associate professor at the University of Southampton, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 from 1-2 p.m. ET in-person at Northeastern University and online.

Abstract

Natural Language Processing (NLP) and in particular Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming the world today. They offer many opportunities but also many challenges especially around their use in critical application areas. Critical application areas are areas where decisions made can significantly impact peoples lives, such as the domains of mental health, law enforcement and defense. In this seminar, Stuart will introduce what LLMs are, what they can do today and some of the challenges that exist with them. He will outline results from his research into LLMs for critical applications, highlighting some of the research questions he sees emerging in this field and signpost some promising directions of travel.

Bio

Dr. Stuart Middleton is an associate professor at the University of Southampton. He has more than 60 peer reviewed publications, many interdisciplinary in nature, focussing on the Natural Language Processing (NLP) areas of information extraction and human-in-the-loop NLP. His research interests are focussed on socio-technical NLP approaches, including large language models, few/zero-shot learning, rationale-based learning, adversarial training and argument mining. He has worked in domains including law enforcement, defense and security, mental health, environmental science, legal and misinformation. He has won grants worth £53M total (£8M for University of Southampton). He is deputy director of the £5.8M MINDS Centre for Doctoral Training, Defence & Security sector lead for the £11M UKRI TAS Hub, Turing Fellow (2021 - 2023), board member of the Centre for Machine Intelligence and a full member of the EPSRC peer review college. He has served on organising committees for several international conferences and workshops, including Area Chair of ACL-2023, chair of workshops at AIUK-2024, AIUK-2023 and WebSci-2020 and short paper & poster chair of IEEE Intelligent Environments 2016. He has been an invited expert at various meetings including UK Cabinet Office Ministerial AI Roundtable 2019 on "Use of AI in Policing."