SVJP Benkyokai: Journey into Innovation: Japanese Large Language Models

Since the release of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022, AI applications fueled by Large Language Models (LLMs) have exploded in popularity. Now, the average office worker has a host of AI productivity tools at their disposal to assist with drafting emails, summarizing meeting notes, generating images, etc. But how accessible are these tools for non-English speaking users? 

With over 50% of websites utilizing English as their main content language, English is the predominant language for training LLMs. As these LLMs absorb massive amounts of English content, a large gap forms in precision and accessibility with foreign languages. In order to overcome this English bias, companies are racing to develop LLMs specifically designed for non-English usage. 

In the upcoming May Benkyokai, the SVJP community will gather to delve into the potential of these developing LLMs, particularly in Japanese. Guiding the audience through the discussion will be Tatsunori Hashimoto (Stanford University), and USJC Associate Kojin Oshiba, (Robust Intelligence).