[PhilPhys] Friday - Colin Klein - Transformers, Representational Structure, and the Language of Thought

[Center for Phil Sci]

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh
invites you to join us for our 65th Annual Lecture Series Talk. Attend in
person in room 1008 in the Cathedral of Learning (10th Floor)  or visit our
live stream on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.



*Colin Klein*

Australian National University



Friday, October 11th  @ 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm EDT



*Title: Transformers, Representational Structure, and the Language of
Thought*

*Abstract:*

Transformers are an extraordinarily powerful computational architecture,
applicable across a range of domains. They are, notably,  the computational
foundation of contemporary Large Language Models (LLMs).  LLMs’ facility
with language have led many to draw analogies between LLMs and human
cognitive processing. Drawing out the consequences of what seems like an
innocuous step—the need for positional encoding of the input to LLMs—I
argue that transformers are broad precisely because they have so little
built-in representational structure. This naturally raises questions about
the need for structured representations and what (if any) advantage they
might have over mere representation of structure. I develop this in
particular in the context of the contemporary revival of the Language of
Thought hypothesis.

*A reception with light refreshments will follow the Talk in The Center on
the 11th floor from 5-6pm.*



*Can’t make it in-person? This talk will available online through the
following:*

Zoom at https://pitt.zoom.us/s/98186620578

YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
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