LLM Models Basics and BERT vs. GPT: Two Titans of Natural Language Processing

LLM refers to Language Learning Model, a general term that can be applied to any machine learning model that is designed to understand, generate, and manipulate human language. The term LLM isn’t a specific model or architecture but can describe a wide range of models from simpler ones like Naive Bayes classifiers used in sentiment analysis, to complex ones like Transformer-based models like BERT, GPT, and T5.

The terms “encoder”, “decoder”, and “encoder-decoder” are often used to describe the architecture of certain types of machine learning models, particularly those used in natural language processing (NLP). Here’s what they mean:

1. Encoder-only models: These models, like BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), are designed to understand the context of words in a sentence by considering both the left and the right context of a word. They are typically used in tasks where the entire context of the input needs to be understood, such as text classification, named entity recognition, and extractive question answering.
2. Decoder-only models: These models, like GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer), generate text sequentially from left to right and are typically used in language generation tasks. They are “autoregressive”, meaning that they generate an output sequence element by element, with each element being generated based on the previous ones.
3. Encoder-decoder models: These models, like the original Transformer model, consist of both an encoder and a decoder. They are used in tasks where an input sequence needs to be transformed into an output sequence, such as machine translation or summarization. The encoder processes the input sequence and compresses the information into a “context vector”, and the decoder then uses this context vector to generate the output sequence.

These architectures have different strengths and weaknesses, and the choice between them depends on the specific requirements of the task at hand.

LLM Models: Crafting Language Understanding

Today we’re embarking on a fascinating journey to explore how Language Learning Models, or LLMs, work. Imagine having a friend who not…