language model

noun

plural language models

: a mathematical model (see model entry 1 sense 3) that analyzes a corpus of text in order to accurately represent the relationships between words

We have tremendous freedom to put words in any order we like. The computer has to have some kind of handle, a language model. It has to figure how likely any particular word is to pop up at any time.

—Robert Mercer, quoted in Chicago Tribune

also : software that uses a language model to generate text (such as responses to queries or prompts)

For example, given the task of analyzing the sentiment of the sentence 'I missed the bus today,' researchers could continue with the prompt 'I felt so [blank]' and ask a language model to fill in the blank with an emotion.

—Kyle Wiggers

see also large language model

Examples of language model in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

While language models learn how to generate text by training on copious amounts of books, articles, and social media posts, Cosmos is designed to generate images and 3D models of the physical world. —Will Knight, WIRED, 7 Jan. 2025

Many robots run software or language models stored in the cloud, which drives up data center energy demand. —Tim Bajarin, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2025

Small language models, as the name implies, are capable of processing, understanding and generating language, but are smaller than their large language counterparts. —Rocio Fabbro, Quartz, 24 Dec. 2024

Furthermore, essentially every big company seems to be working from the same recipe, making bigger and bigger language models, but all winding up in more or less the same place, which is models that are about as good as GPT-4, but not a whole lot better. —Gary Marcus, WIRED, 20 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1976, in the meaning defined above