Stochastic Parrots: A Novel Look at Large Language Models and Their Limitations

Author(s): Muhammad Saad Uddin

Originally published on Towards AI.

Recently, The term “stochastic parrots” has been making headlines in the AI and natural language processing (NLP) community. Particularly after the hype created by Large Language Models (LLM’s) like ChatGPT, Bard, and now GPT4. but what exactly does it mean, and what are its implications for the future of NLP in specific and AI in general?

I learned about it quite recently while experiencing the hyped waves of LLM’s when a paper from ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency ’21 (FAccT) went through my eyes. The term “stochastic parrots” was coined by Emily M. Bender in this paper.  Cognitive scientist and author Dr. Gary Marcus has also argued about the limitations of statistical models and that current NLP models such as GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) or Google BARD are not truly intelligent and can be prone to errors and biases. According to the Stochastic Parrot argument, these models are essentially “parroting” back statistical patterns that they have learned from large datasets rather than actually understanding the language they are processing.

At its core, the term “stochastic parrots” refers to large language models that are impressive in their ability to generate realistic-sounding language but ultimately do not truly understand the meaning of the language they are processing. These models rely on statistical patterns in data to generate responses but are not capable of true reasoning or understanding.

The rise of stochastic parrots in LLM’s has been driven in large part by advances in deep learning and other AI techniques.

These LLM’s models are trained on massive amounts of text data and use complex algorithms to learn patterns and relationships within the data. They have been used to generate realistic-sounding language in a variety of applications, from chatbots to virtual assistants to automated news articles. However, the limitations or problems of stochastic parrots are becoming increasingly clear. These models are not capable of true reasoning or understanding and are prone to errors and biases. They can perpetuate stereotypes and other problematic patterns in language and are not always transparent about how they arrive at their responses.

Despite this limitations, models like GPT-3 , GPT-4 and Google BARD are seen as some of the most impressive achievements in AI and NLP to date, and have generated a great deal of excitement and investment.

Let’s understand this simply:

Stochastic parrots occur when a computer program called a language model learns to talk like a person but doesn’t really understand what it’s saying. It’s like when you copy someone’s words without really understanding what they mean.

For example, imagine you’re trying to learn a new language by listening to people talk. If you just copy what they say without really understanding the words and grammar, you might end up repeating things that don’t make sense or using words in the wrong way.

This is what happens with stochastic parrots — the language model copies patterns and phrases it learns from lots of examples of human language without really understanding what they mean. So sometimes, the model might give a response that doesn’t really make sense or uses words in a way that doesn’t fit the context. To avoid this, we need to help the language model understand what it’s saying, just like we need to understand the words we use when we speak a language.

The issue of stochastic parrots can be seen as a more general challenge in AI and ML: how to ensure that models are truly learning and reasoning, rather than just memorizing patterns in the data? This challenge is particularly acute as models continue to grow in size and complexity, and as they are increasingly used in high-stakes applications like healthcare, finance, and transportation.

How to identify if a model is being stochastic parrots?

So far, from what I learned, the most common examples of stochastic parrots in language models include:

1. Repetition of phrases: The model may generate the same phrase or sentence multiple times in the generated text without providing any new information or insight.
2. Overuse of templates: The model may generate language using a fixed template structure, such as “I [verb] [noun] because [reason].” This can lead to predictable and formulaic language generation.
3. Lack of context: The model may generate language that is not well-suited to the specific context or topic being discussed, leading to incoherent or irrelevant text.
4. Filling in the blanks: The model may generate language that fills in missing words or phrases based on the training data without truly understanding the meaning or context behind the language.

Now, the question arises how does this phenomenon impacts the model’s accuracy and effectiveness?

I did some research and found answers like:

1. Decreased quality of generated language: If the model is simply repeating phrases or using fixed templates, the generated language may lack originality and coherence, reducing the quality of the generated text.
2. Limited ability to handle new contexts: If the model is not well-equipped to handle new or unfamiliar contexts, it may struggle to generate accurate and relevant language in these situations.
3. Limited generalizability: This phenomenon can limit the model’s ability to generate language that is truly representative of human language, potentially reducing its generalizability to new domains or tasks.

Evaluating the impact of stochastic parrots on the model’s performance

Evaluating the impact of stochastic parrots on the model’s performance can be challenging, as it can be difficult to quantify the extent to which the model’s language generation is impacted by stochasticity. However, there are several metrics that can be used to measure the quality of the model’s language generation, which can provide insight into the impact of stochastic parrots on the model’s performance.

Perplexity is a measure of how well the language model predicts the next word in a sequence of words. Lower perplexity scores indicate better performance or BLEU score (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) is a metric used to evaluate the quality of machine translation output, but it can also be used to evaluate the quality of language generation.

Similarly, ROUGE (Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation) is a metric used to evaluate the quality of text summarization output, but it can also be used to evaluate the quality of language generation. ROUGE scores range from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating better performance and, lastly, employing human evaluators to rate the quality of the generated language based on criteria such as fluency, coherence, and relevance.

By comparing the performance of the language model on these metrics with and without stochastic parrots, we can gain insight into the impact of stochasticity on the model’s performance.

Potential consequences

I am sure researchers are already pushing limits to overcome this problem, but if this persists for some time can not only impact the effectiveness and trustworthiness of LLMs but can also result in replicating biases and inaccuracies that are present in the training data, which, if not catered will further result in spreading of false information based on analysis conducted by NewsGaurd. This brings me to the question that, If a language model is generating language that is misleading or inaccurate, it could have serious ethical implications.

For example, if the model is used in the context of news or information sharing, it could spread false or harmful information. This can be particularly problematic in cases where the language model is being used to influence people’s opinions or decisions.

In general, this will also lead to users may losing trust and confidence in the LLM’s. Furthermore, if the LLM is being used in sensitive or high-stakes applications, such as legal or medical contexts, the consequences of stochastic parrots can be even more severe.

In conclusion, stochastic parrots are a problem that can arise in language models, particularly LLMs, when the model relies too heavily on copying language patterns without truly understanding their meaning. If left unchecked, stochastic parrots can have serious consequences for AI development and deployment, as well as for users who rely on these technologies for important tasks. This underscores the importance of addressing the issue through careful model design, evaluation, and ongoing monitoring.

While addressing stochastic parrots in LLMs may require significant effort, it is necessary to ensure that these models continue to be effective and reliable tools for language generation. Plus, who doesn’t want to have some fun monitoring their model for signs of “parrot-like” behavior? It’s like having a pet bird that never stops repeating what you say! (Note: sarcasm intended.)

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Published via Towards AI