Language Models as Agent Models

Authors: Jacob Andreas

Results of the summarizing process for the arXiv paper: 2212.01681v1

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In the paper "Language Models as Agent Models" by Jacob Andreas, the author explores the capabilities of language models (LMs) in understanding the relationship between language and use. LMs are trained on collections of documents written by human agents to achieve specific goals in the outside world. The author argues that LMs can indeed serve as models of intentional communication in a narrow sense. When predicting the next word based on a given textual context, an LM can infer and represent properties of the agent likely to have produced that context. These representations can then influence subsequent LM generation, similar to how agents' communicative intentions impact their language. Recent literature suggests that LMs are capable of inferring and utilizing fine-grained communicative intentions, as well as more abstract beliefs and goals. This indicates that even with their limited training data, LMs can act as building blocks for systems that communicate and act intentionally. Overall, this paper highlights the potential for LMs to learn about the relationship between language and use, challenging previous notions about their limitations in modeling goal-directed aspects of human language production and comprehension.
AI-generated keywords: Language Models Agent Models Goal-Directed Intentional Communication Representations

AI-generated Key Points

  • Language models (LMs) can serve as models of intentional communication in a narrow sense
  • LMs can infer and represent properties of the agent likely to have produced a given textual context
  • LMs can utilize fine-grained communicative intentions, beliefs, and goals
  • LMs have the potential to act as building blocks for systems that communicate and act intentionally
  • Challenges previous notions about the limitations of LMs in modeling goal-directed aspects of human language production and comprehension
Also access our AI generated: Comprehensive summary, Lay summary, Blog-like article; or ask questions about this paper to our AI assistant.

Abstract: Language models (LMs) are trained on collections of documents, written by individual human agents to achieve specific goals in an outside world. During training, LMs have access only to text of these documents, with no direct evidence of the internal states of the agents that produced them -- a fact often used to argue that LMs are incapable of modeling goal-directed aspects of human language production and comprehension. Can LMs trained on text learn anything at all about the relationship between language and use? I argue that LMs are models of intentional communication in a specific, narrow sense. When performing next word prediction given a textual context, an LM can infer and represent properties of an agent likely to have produced that context. These representations can in turn influence subsequent LM generation in the same way that agents' communicative intentions influence their language. I survey findings from the recent literature showing that -- even in today's non-robust and error-prone models -- LMs infer and use representations of fine-grained communicative intentions and more abstract beliefs and goals. Despite the limited nature of their training data, they can thus serve as building blocks for systems that communicate and act intentionally.

Submitted to arXiv on 03 Dec. 2022

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