Advanced Topics in Computer Science: Understanding Large Language Models

Large pre-trained language models have utterly transformed the field of natural language processing in the last 3-4 years. They form the basis of state-of-art systems and become ubiquitous in solving a wide range of language understanding and generation tasks. This course aims to cover cutting-edge research topics centering around large language models. We discuss their technical foundations, emerging capabilities, fine-tuning and adaptation, theoretical understanding, system design, as well as security and ethics. Students are expected to routinely read and present research papers and complete a research project at the end.