"RDF and the future of LLMs" by Luke VanderHart

00:41:53
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxzUjpihIH4

Summary

TLDRThis talk explores the intersection of RDF (Resource Description Framework) and language models, delving into their potential integration and utility. Initially, the speaker presents opposing controversial views: language models are a technological advance and benefit but also have harmful societal impacts. The discussion transitions to RDF's capability in tackling knowledge representation, linking data, and semantic web ideals. The challenges with RDF, historically tethered to complex formats and costly tools, are acknowledged. Language models, powered by the Transformer architecture, revolutionized natural language processing by structuring grammar, semantics, and pragmatics. Emphasizing how RDF's structure aligns with language modeling, the speaker suggests that RDF aids in reasoned data handling, validating inquiries, and enabling inferential logic. This insightful approach is part of a broader neurosymbolic AI agenda, aiming to combine neural networks with logical symbols. The talk concludes with a call to ethically and innovatively utilize AI technology, ensuring benefits outweigh drawbacks and enriching societal value.

Takeaways

  • 📊 RDF tackles complex knowledge representation issues.
  • 🧠 Language models revolutionize natural language processing.
  • 📉 RDF perceived as outdated but still valuable.
  • 🔗 Semantic web overhyped, underdelivered due to effort and incentives.
  • 🛠️ Language models function by predicting the next token in sequences.
  • 🔍 RDF aids in precise data queries and reasoning.
  • 🌐 Integration of RDF and language models enhances data handling.
  • 💡 Neurosymbolic AI aims to merge neural and logical systems.
  • 🤔 Mixed feelings about AI's societal impacts.
  • 🔨 Ethical and beneficial use of AI remains crucial.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    The speaker introduces the talk by acknowledging that it has been previously given to a smaller group and was well received. They express their interest in explaining the basic concepts of RDF and language models and their integration, starting with controversial statements about the value and challenges of AI technology, particularly its societal impacts.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    The speaker discusses the Resource Description Framework (RDF) as a solution for knowledge representation and reasoning, conceived by the same group responsible for internet specifications. They outline the technical achievements of RDF and its core components, despite its perceived obsolescence compared to newer technologies.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    In this segment, the speaker explores criticisms and challenges RDF faces, such as its association with outdated formats and costly enterprise solutions. However, they note RDF's continued utility in complex data modeling across various industries, and address the misconceptions stemming from the overhype of the semantic web.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    The speaker describes the elemental RDF concepts—resources and their descriptions—and how unique identifiers (IRIs) help overcome natural language ambiguity. They extend the discussion by linking RDF's principles to philosophical concepts of meaning and semiotics, highlighting symbolic connections and precision offered by RDF.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    RDF's use of triples is explained as architecturally simple yet capable of detailed and precise data representation, which can integrate with various database formats. The speaker also touches on the ability to compose datasets without losing meaning, exemplifying RDF's flexibility and utility in unifying disparate data sources.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    Attention is turned to entailment in RDF, a way of reasoning over data to derive new insights and ensure data validity. The talk diverges into a historical context, linking RDF development to symbolic AI's history, and touches upon its aspirations to encompass logical reasoning within interconnected systems referencing standards like first-order logic.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    The speaker transitions to language models, starting with the breakthrough 'Attention is All You Need' paper that enabled modern NLP. Language models' applications are briefly showcased, along with their operational simplicity and underlying complexity. The speaker encourages exploring their operation via educational resources for deeper understanding.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:41:53

    The talk concludes with a practical view on using language models, positing that all advancements revolve around refining model inputs to produce superior outputs. By integrating RDF data in prompts, models can potentially bridge the gap between structured data and language processing, ultimately enhancing utility and reasoning capabilities.

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Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • What are the two controversial statements made by the speaker?

    The first statement is that language models are beneficial and innovative. The second is that AI and language models have negative societal impacts such as environmental harm and misinformation.

  • What is RDF?

    RDF stands for Resource Description Framework, a model to represent data about resources in the form of relations, using triples: subject, predicate, and object.

  • Why does the speaker have mixed feelings about language models?

    The speaker appreciates their technological advancement but is concerned about their environmental impact, effect on art and labor, and the negative culture around AI.

  • What is the relation between RDF and language models?

    RDF provides a framework for structured data which can be useful when integrated with language models, facilitating precise queries and data handling.

  • What is a language model?

    A language model is a computational model that predicts the next token in a sequence, capturing grammar, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of language.

  • What are the difficulties with RDF today?

    RDF is seen as outdated by some, it started with complex formats like RDF/XML, and is associated with overarchitected libraries and enterprise-grade costly tools.

  • How does the speaker propose to make AI technology beneficial?

    By being mindful of impacts, avoiding hasty discussions on platforms like social media, and striving to make the technology as good as possible within its trade-offs.

  • What is the 'semantic web'?

    The semantic web is an idea to link data globally, allowing data to be easily traversed and united. It was overhyped and didn’t gain traction due to manual effort and lack of immediate benefits.

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  • 00:00:04
    um thanks for coming everyone this is a
  • 00:00:05
    version of a talk that I gave to a much
  • 00:00:07
    smaller group um several months ago uh
  • 00:00:09
    was pretty well received um it's what
  • 00:00:11
    I'm working on right now and so I'm just
  • 00:00:14
    hopefully explain some of the the basic
  • 00:00:16
    concepts and ideas we'll go over what
  • 00:00:18
    rdf is uh what language models are um
  • 00:00:21
    and then why they go well together which
  • 00:00:23
    I think is unintuitive to most people
  • 00:00:25
    unless you've already been thinking
  • 00:00:26
    along these lines um yeah so we'll go
  • 00:00:28
    from there going to start with a
  • 00:00:30
    controversial statement
  • 00:00:33
    um and I'm going to make two
  • 00:00:34
    controversial statements that are
  • 00:00:35
    mutually exclusive so you'll find
  • 00:00:37
    yourself in agreement with one and in
  • 00:00:38
    disagreement with the other most likely
  • 00:00:40
    or maybe you're like me and you feel the
  • 00:00:41
    tension so the first one is uh language
  • 00:00:44
    models are pretty neat and I like them
  • 00:00:47
    uh we never imagine that we'd be able to
  • 00:00:49
    compute over unstructured text like this
  • 00:00:52
    uh and it really feels like a technical
  • 00:00:54
    advance and I like technical advances I
  • 00:00:56
    think that technology on net is a real
  • 00:00:59
    Force for good um especially if you can
  • 00:01:01
    get the societal structures aligned so
  • 00:01:03
    definitely go vote in a few days um but
  • 00:01:07
    the interest I have in this specific
  • 00:01:08
    Tech is also deeply personal um my
  • 00:01:11
    academic background is in philosophy and
  • 00:01:14
    Linguistics so and then all my work has
  • 00:01:17
    been in computers and data so having
  • 00:01:19
    them merge like this it's you know very
  • 00:01:22
    interesting personally we have a real
  • 00:01:24
    serial Chinese room in the room with us
  • 00:01:26
    right now that's wild uh for those of
  • 00:01:28
    you are familiar to philosophy uh but
  • 00:01:31
    the second controversial statement is
  • 00:01:34
    language models suck or rather AI sucks
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    and specifically the way our culture has
  • 00:01:39
    been using it um it's bad for the
  • 00:01:41
    environment um it's bad for art it's bad
  • 00:01:44
    for labor um or at least artists and um
  • 00:01:47
    labor are upset about many aspects of it
  • 00:01:49
    um we are drowning in slop and spam and
  • 00:01:52
    disinformation um and the ecosystem at
  • 00:01:54
    large has some good people in it but it
  • 00:01:55
    also attracts a lot of the absolute
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    worst sorts and so I have very mixed
  • 00:01:59
    feelings about working on this stuff um
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    so here's how I've decided to approach
  • 00:02:03
    it first of all just be mindful of the
  • 00:02:05
    impact I think we don't as technologists
  • 00:02:06
    have the luxury of doing something just
  • 00:02:08
    because it's cool or just because we can
  • 00:02:09
    you really have to think about how the
  • 00:02:11
    products we build are going to affect
  • 00:02:12
    the world um also do not talk about this
  • 00:02:15
    stuff on social media most for the most
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    part um nobody there has a reasoned well
  • 00:02:19
    thought out opinion um these are for for
  • 00:02:22
    long more thoughtful
  • 00:02:23
    conversations and the final thing what
  • 00:02:25
    this talk is about is how can we make
  • 00:02:26
    the tech actually good if it comes with
  • 00:02:28
    all these trade-offs if there's all
  • 00:02:29
    these negative externalities how good
  • 00:02:31
    does it have to be before it becomes net
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    good for the world in a positive force
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    and it seems like it's here people are
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    going to be using it so let's make it as
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    good as it can possibly be but how um
  • 00:02:44
    technology is good language models our
  • 00:02:46
    technology how do we make language
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    models useful and my answer is the
  • 00:02:50
    resource description framework so
  • 00:02:53
    hopefully um at the end of this talk you
  • 00:02:55
    will sort of see what I see but first
  • 00:02:58
    let's talk a little bit about rdf what
  • 00:02:59
    it is is where it came from so rdf is an
  • 00:03:02
    attempt to tackle some of the hardest
  • 00:03:04
    problems of knowledge representation and
  • 00:03:06
    reasoning um it came about just after
  • 00:03:08
    the internet um from the same group of
  • 00:03:10
    people that put together all the
  • 00:03:11
    internet specifications the w3c um and a
  • 00:03:14
    lot of people that came out of the
  • 00:03:15
    symbolic AI um boom of the 80s so we're
  • 00:03:18
    trying to you know reach AI through
  • 00:03:20
    logic
  • 00:03:22
    um these people are all giant nerds and
  • 00:03:24
    they're really trying to do the right
  • 00:03:26
    thing and to build like the ultimate
  • 00:03:28
    data framework and
  • 00:03:30
    you know it's got it pros and cons um
  • 00:03:32
    but I think to a large degree they
  • 00:03:34
    succeeded um this is the kind of
  • 00:03:37
    definitive document the the concepts an
  • 00:03:39
    abstract syntax because of course it's
  • 00:03:40
    abstract um I really love this document
  • 00:03:43
    it's quite readable um if you're enough
  • 00:03:45
    of a nerd you might find this document
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    sort of inspiring um and I think rdf in
  • 00:03:50
    general at its core is a pretty
  • 00:03:52
    brilliant technical achievement um for
  • 00:03:54
    clarity and vision around how we can or
  • 00:03:57
    how we might work with knowledge on
  • 00:04:00
    computer systems they're trying to solve
  • 00:04:02
    this at a very high level however rdf
  • 00:04:04
    today um and many of you may be
  • 00:04:06
    surprised to see this in a talk um at a
  • 00:04:09
    contemporary Tech conference a lot of
  • 00:04:10
    people see it the same way they see soap
  • 00:04:12
    or ejbs or Visual Basic or react um it's
  • 00:04:16
    one of these tactics you know it's just
  • 00:04:17
    not that cool anymore um and of course
  • 00:04:20
    it's gone through the whole hype cycle
  • 00:04:21
    and now it's very much not in the hype
  • 00:04:23
    cycle uh and there's a few reasons for
  • 00:04:25
    this that I do want to kind of go over
  • 00:04:26
    before we get more into the meat of it
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    uh one is rdf XML which is one of the
  • 00:04:31
    initial formats um I don't know how many
  • 00:04:33
    of you remember the early 2000s well um
  • 00:04:36
    but everyone was just doing lines of XML
  • 00:04:38
    at work all the time it
  • 00:04:41
    was there was a lot going on there um
  • 00:04:44
    this is a verbos complex format it's
  • 00:04:46
    just honestly not great but for the
  • 00:04:48
    early days of rdf it kind of got really
  • 00:04:49
    strongly associated with this even
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    though this is only one of many many
  • 00:04:52
    formats you can use also a product of
  • 00:04:55
    its times that all the libraries that
  • 00:04:57
    were written to use it were in the early
  • 00:05:00
    2000s um and what are libraries in the
  • 00:05:02
    early 2000s like they're all massively
  • 00:05:05
    over architected object-oriented
  • 00:05:06
    programming um this is a historical
  • 00:05:08
    accident that all the library all the
  • 00:05:10
    rdf libraries look this way because it's
  • 00:05:14
    just that they co-occurred in history
  • 00:05:15
    there's nothing about rdf that makes it
  • 00:05:17
    a good fit for object-oriented
  • 00:05:18
    programming and closure is actually a
  • 00:05:20
    way better fit um so I wish there was a
  • 00:05:21
    good closure library for
  • 00:05:25
    this another reason is that there
  • 00:05:27
    actually are a lot of pretty good really
  • 00:05:29
    solid robust um Enterprise grade uh rdf
  • 00:05:32
    implementations out there and they all
  • 00:05:34
    cost call me money um you cannot just
  • 00:05:38
    start using these so there's a real Gap
  • 00:05:39
    in the market for Quality accessible
  • 00:05:41
    tools um but the existence of all these
  • 00:05:45
    really heavyweight Enterprise uh tools
  • 00:05:47
    for rdf does tell us something which is
  • 00:05:49
    there's actually a quite established
  • 00:05:51
    market for this stuff rdf is being used
  • 00:05:53
    really productively in science heavy
  • 00:05:55
    industry government anywhere you need to
  • 00:05:58
    really model super complex information
  • 00:05:59
    information with Precision um so there's
  • 00:06:02
    a surprising number of domains where rdf
  • 00:06:04
    based standards are the standard uh for
  • 00:06:06
    modeling data another reason is that the
  • 00:06:09
    semantic web was quite simply overhyped
  • 00:06:11
    uh for the time it's a great idea we'll
  • 00:06:13
    link all our data we can Traverse all
  • 00:06:14
    the data everything will be unified and
  • 00:06:15
    we will live in this data Utopia um but
  • 00:06:18
    the problem was it required so much
  • 00:06:19
    manual effort to publish and consume
  • 00:06:21
    constantly um and all the benefits were
  • 00:06:24
    like abstract there was no immediate
  • 00:06:25
    financial incentive for anyone to
  • 00:06:27
    actually go Implement all their data as
  • 00:06:29
    link data and expose it in this way um
  • 00:06:31
    and so despite tons and tons of books
  • 00:06:33
    because it's a great idea everyone got
  • 00:06:34
    super excited about it and then nobody
  • 00:06:36
    actually did it and then people just
  • 00:06:37
    kind of came to the conclusion that this
  • 00:06:38
    is a bad
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    idea um so this is really what I want um
  • 00:06:44
    you know I wish this book got popular um
  • 00:06:47
    that I lived in that history uh but the
  • 00:06:50
    truth is rdf is all good parts because
  • 00:06:52
    it's all separate all the things that
  • 00:06:54
    are not good parts are not they're just
  • 00:06:56
    kind of the surrounding ecosystem which
  • 00:06:57
    we can replace or or not choose to use
  • 00:07:00
    um so hopefully I can convince you that
  • 00:07:04
    rdf is great and what is the elegant
  • 00:07:06
    core uh I'll describe what the actual
  • 00:07:08
    technology is and how you use it um it's
  • 00:07:11
    the resource description framework so
  • 00:07:13
    let's talk about resources first um what
  • 00:07:16
    is a resource a resource is anything in
  • 00:07:18
    the world that you can talk about people
  • 00:07:21
    fictional entities abstract Concepts
  • 00:07:23
    material objects um data anything that
  • 00:07:26
    can be the subject of language can be
  • 00:07:28
    the subject of rdf
  • 00:07:30
    how do we represent anything in a
  • 00:07:33
    computer computers can't represent
  • 00:07:35
    anything they have bits well literals
  • 00:07:37
    are easy because they are bits so
  • 00:07:38
    anything that is itself um can be a
  • 00:07:41
    resource you know then a computers do
  • 00:07:43
    know how to actually have the number
  • 00:07:44
    numbers and and strings as
  • 00:07:46
    resources um we can also represent
  • 00:07:48
    things kind of abstractly without
  • 00:07:50
    talking about what they are these are
  • 00:07:51
    like variables or or pronouns that you
  • 00:07:53
    can talk about something without ever
  • 00:07:55
    trying to say exactly what it is um so
  • 00:07:59
    we can talk about something without
  • 00:08:01
    using its name which can be useful
  • 00:08:03
    sometimes and then sometimes we do want
  • 00:08:04
    to name things and this is very this is
  • 00:08:07
    a lot of letters to say a unique
  • 00:08:09
    ID um and really that's all it is is it
  • 00:08:12
    needs to be unique ID so what are some
  • 00:08:14
    Iris resource identifiers um U IDs right
  • 00:08:17
    they're unique we know that um anything
  • 00:08:20
    that has a known naming
  • 00:08:23
    Authority so we know the ISBN system
  • 00:08:25
    this is guaranteed to be unique um most
  • 00:08:28
    commonly you'll see urls and URLs are
  • 00:08:30
    great for uniqueness because they
  • 00:08:31
    establish in their domain an authority
  • 00:08:33
    and whoever owns that domain takes on
  • 00:08:34
    responsibility and Authority for making
  • 00:08:36
    sure there's no duplications or um
  • 00:08:39
    ambiguity in the rest of the URL and
  • 00:08:42
    these uis can be resolvable you can
  • 00:08:43
    actually hit this in your browser and
  • 00:08:44
    it'll ask you what format you want to
  • 00:08:46
    download Abraham Lincoln's data in and
  • 00:08:48
    they can also be non-resolvable so for
  • 00:08:50
    example this is URI that I made just now
  • 00:08:53
    this morning and it defines my concept
  • 00:08:56
    of Excellence I haven't written this
  • 00:08:58
    down anywhere nobody knows what it is is
  • 00:08:59
    except for me um but I still can make a
  • 00:09:01
    U iri for it and talk about it um and
  • 00:09:04
    it's the name of a um something you
  • 00:09:07
    can't resolve this but I can still use
  • 00:09:09
    it to talk about that Concept in the rdf
  • 00:09:11
    vocabulary and of course because Iris
  • 00:09:13
    are pretty long and cumbersome you can
  • 00:09:15
    shorten them every syntax has shortened
  • 00:09:17
    prefixes um kind of like closure
  • 00:09:18
    keywords so when you see a bunch of Iris
  • 00:09:21
    around in practice you can ually it
  • 00:09:24
    looks a lot
  • 00:09:26
    cleaner so why Iris why do we have why
  • 00:09:28
    is unique identifier so important um why
  • 00:09:31
    do we put so much focus into making sure
  • 00:09:33
    resources are unique well it's because
  • 00:09:35
    in language context is everything take
  • 00:09:37
    the sentence my friend Joe what I just
  • 00:09:39
    start a sentence that way what do you
  • 00:09:41
    need to know in order to make sense of
  • 00:09:42
    that sentence you need to know who's
  • 00:09:45
    speaking you need to know uh do you know
  • 00:09:47
    Joe or not that could change the context
  • 00:09:50
    um Joe who I haven't said his last name
  • 00:09:52
    I just said Joe right so natural
  • 00:09:54
    language is really inherently ambiguous
  • 00:09:57
    and we rely a ton on context to fix it
  • 00:10:00
    and the problem is we do this with
  • 00:10:01
    programming too in most programming
  • 00:10:02
    systems when you get data it comes to
  • 00:10:04
    you like this you say I have a name and
  • 00:10:06
    I have a handle and I have an ID and now
  • 00:10:10
    I can process it but in order for me to
  • 00:10:12
    process as a programmer I need to supply
  • 00:10:13
    the context I need to understand the
  • 00:10:15
    system I need to understand where the
  • 00:10:16
    day is coming from I need to understand
  • 00:10:17
    what it means and then maybe I can write
  • 00:10:19
    code against
  • 00:10:20
    it the goal of Iris an rdf is that they
  • 00:10:24
    carry their context with them right um
  • 00:10:29
    my friend Joe his handle well that's his
  • 00:10:30
    LinkedIn handle and when I see that if
  • 00:10:32
    you just hand me a scrap of paper that
  • 00:10:34
    says oh well it's a LinkedIn handle and
  • 00:10:36
    oh that's his social security number
  • 00:10:38
    that's the ID it's not his real one
  • 00:10:41
    um
  • 00:10:42
    um you know it it carries its own
  • 00:10:45
    context the data brings its own
  • 00:10:48
    values and this also gets super
  • 00:10:50
    philosophical really quick which is
  • 00:10:51
    probably why I like it um Iris are very
  • 00:10:54
    closely related to the philosophical
  • 00:10:56
    field of semiotics which is really
  • 00:10:58
    important for logic philosophy
  • 00:11:00
    Linguistics and literature lotss of
  • 00:11:01
    fields use this um there's a ton of
  • 00:11:03
    thought about how a sign or a symbol can
  • 00:11:05
    be about something in the real world
  • 00:11:06
    that's what this famous painting is
  • 00:11:08
    about like is it a is it a pipe is it a
  • 00:11:09
    picture of a pipe is it me talking about
  • 00:11:11
    a picture of a pipe um what are the
  • 00:11:13
    layers of indirection how do you
  • 00:11:14
    dreference a pointer in your brain to
  • 00:11:16
    Something in the real world that's the
  • 00:11:18
    field of semiotics and for rdf it's how
  • 00:11:21
    do you dreference
  • 00:11:22
    a identifier in a computer to Something
  • 00:11:25
    in the real world and of course you
  • 00:11:26
    don't actually reference it but you can
  • 00:11:27
    use it in systems with the understanding
  • 00:11:29
    that it does dfference conceptually
  • 00:11:32
    something this is also very similar to
  • 00:11:34
    the work of Ferdinand D he was uh one of
  • 00:11:36
    the foundational figures in modern
  • 00:11:38
    Linguistics he wrote A Course in general
  • 00:11:40
    Linguistics in 1916 his concept of
  • 00:11:42
    meaning was that everything is a
  • 00:11:44
    semantic Network every sign or every
  • 00:11:47
    word gains meaning by its opposition and
  • 00:11:49
    relation to every other sign in the
  • 00:11:52
    vocabulary um and that was his
  • 00:11:54
    definition of meaning he's like there's
  • 00:11:55
    really nothing much more to meaning than
  • 00:11:56
    that except it's this network and
  • 00:11:58
    everything is defined in relation into
  • 00:11:59
    everything else so it's like a densely
  • 00:12:02
    connected graph of all the words which
  • 00:12:03
    sounds kind of familiar um sounds a
  • 00:12:05
    little bit like link data Maybe and uh
  • 00:12:07
    it also maybe sounds like some other
  • 00:12:08
    things that we'll talk about later okay
  • 00:12:11
    so we have resources how do we have
  • 00:12:14
    descriptions um well we've got resources
  • 00:12:17
    in Iris so how do we express relations
  • 00:12:19
    between different resources I think
  • 00:12:21
    everyone in this room is pretty
  • 00:12:22
    comfortable with triples subject
  • 00:12:24
    predicate object entity attribute value
  • 00:12:26
    if you're in English it's subject verb
  • 00:12:28
    object it is a one of the most granular
  • 00:12:31
    ways of representing a singular piece of
  • 00:12:33
    information in kind of the you can't
  • 00:12:35
    really decompose it further you can have
  • 00:12:37
    a single resource but then it's just I
  • 00:12:39
    say a name but if I want to say anything
  • 00:12:40
    about that name this is about as small
  • 00:12:42
    as you can get
  • 00:12:45
    um yeah so here's a bunch of things I'm
  • 00:12:47
    saying about Joe and there are all
  • 00:12:49
    different things I can say his real name
  • 00:12:51
    I can say his name according to LinkedIn
  • 00:12:52
    I can say he knows me I can say he's the
  • 00:12:54
    same as this other we can just say a
  • 00:12:56
    bunch of stuff about jono
  • 00:12:59
    and it's important that both the subject
  • 00:13:00
    and the predicate and the object of an
  • 00:13:02
    rdf triple all three parts of it um are
  • 00:13:05
    very very precise we can be more precise
  • 00:13:07
    than English so sorry the text is a
  • 00:13:09
    little bit small but um there are two
  • 00:13:11
    statements here and one is Luke
  • 00:13:14
    loves their child and the other one is
  • 00:13:16
    Luke loves closure and normally in
  • 00:13:18
    English again semantic ambiguity but in
  • 00:13:21
    rdf I've actually have the iri of two
  • 00:13:23
    separate dictionary subheadings of the
  • 00:13:25
    word love so I can be very very precise
  • 00:13:27
    about what I mean and if one was not in
  • 00:13:29
    the dictionary I could go make up my own
  • 00:13:30
    iri that had the nuances that I wanted
  • 00:13:32
    to attach to that statement so we're
  • 00:13:35
    we're packing a lot of meaning into the
  • 00:13:36
    iris and we can be much much more
  • 00:13:38
    precise than English and actually much
  • 00:13:40
    much more precise than most other data
  • 00:13:44
    formats this generality of triples also
  • 00:13:47
    means that you can go back and forth
  • 00:13:50
    between almost any other data format
  • 00:13:51
    relational databases key value column
  • 00:13:53
    stores document based all of these can
  • 00:13:55
    be converted to triples and the
  • 00:13:57
    operation is actually conceptually
  • 00:13:58
    similar add the context so in example in
  • 00:14:01
    a relational database the context is
  • 00:14:02
    like oh what are all the tables and what
  • 00:14:04
    is the structure and where does the
  • 00:14:04
    database live you can kind of compress
  • 00:14:06
    that all that information into the
  • 00:14:09
    semantics of the iris themselves and
  • 00:14:12
    then of course you can go back in the
  • 00:14:13
    opposite
  • 00:14:13
    direction what does this mean it means
  • 00:14:16
    that an rdf data set is a set in the
  • 00:14:19
    closure sense or the mathematical sense
  • 00:14:21
    it's just a bunch of triples that are
  • 00:14:22
    not duplicated because every iri and
  • 00:14:24
    every triple is guaranteed to be unique
  • 00:14:27
    and we don't need to know anything else
  • 00:14:28
    about what table there are or what
  • 00:14:30
    folders there are or what trees or
  • 00:14:31
    directory structures or anything we just
  • 00:14:34
    have
  • 00:14:35
    sets and that means that we can also
  • 00:14:37
    safely Union sets so this is where the
  • 00:14:39
    concept of the semantic web comes from I
  • 00:14:42
    can I can take your data I can take my
  • 00:14:43
    data I can just slam them together with
  • 00:14:44
    a set Union and it's still something
  • 00:14:46
    meaningful and intelligible which is not
  • 00:14:48
    true of most other database systems it's
  • 00:14:50
    Federation for
  • 00:14:53
    free
  • 00:14:55
    so we've described the core of rdf um
  • 00:14:59
    that's really it resources and triples
  • 00:15:03
    uh not nothing conceptually difficult
  • 00:15:04
    there but it's worth saying something
  • 00:15:06
    else about what the designers Invision
  • 00:15:07
    you know they call it a framework and
  • 00:15:08
    with with a framework they want you to
  • 00:15:10
    build things with a framework right and
  • 00:15:12
    we can describe data but what more is
  • 00:15:15
    there so this guy is actually the
  • 00:15:17
    primary contributor to the rdf standard
  • 00:15:19
    um Aristotle um I'm not even joking he
  • 00:15:24
    invented the word subject predicate and
  • 00:15:25
    object in the context in which we're
  • 00:15:27
    using them now um and this entire book
  • 00:15:30
    is about you know the first chapter of
  • 00:15:31
    this is listing all the types of things
  • 00:15:32
    that exist in the world according to
  • 00:15:33
    Aristotle and the rest of the book is
  • 00:15:35
    the foundation of modern Western logic
  • 00:15:39
    um he builds it all starting from here
  • 00:15:41
    what what what can you say about what
  • 00:15:42
    kinds of things um and rdf is really
  • 00:15:46
    bigger than just data or storing data
  • 00:15:49
    like we normally think of it's more than
  • 00:15:50
    just a spreadsheet or a table or a
  • 00:15:51
    bucket that I can put data it's about
  • 00:15:53
    representing knowledge and knowledge is
  • 00:15:56
    not limited to just things I've written
  • 00:15:58
    down it's also limited to the things I
  • 00:16:00
    know because of the things I wrote down
  • 00:16:02
    right it's basically rdf as a
  • 00:16:06
    system is designed to make it possible
  • 00:16:08
    to talk about all the things I know
  • 00:16:10
    whether I know them concretely or
  • 00:16:12
    abstractly or in theory but I never
  • 00:16:13
    bother to actually think about them in
  • 00:16:14
    calculate them the actual data that is
  • 00:16:16
    actually sitting on bits in a database
  • 00:16:17
    is largely incidental um to a lot of
  • 00:16:20
    uses of
  • 00:16:21
    rdf so this is all about entailment
  • 00:16:23
    entailment means that given a set of
  • 00:16:25
    triples I can derive other triples from
  • 00:16:28
    them con ctually either lazily or
  • 00:16:30
    proactively doesn't matter um or if I
  • 00:16:32
    have a set of triples I can tell if it
  • 00:16:34
    is valid According to some definition of
  • 00:16:38
    validity and that can be really
  • 00:16:41
    useful because there's so many different
  • 00:16:42
    ways to do this the rdf uh Community has
  • 00:16:45
    a number of what they call different
  • 00:16:46
    entailment profiles um the best and kind
  • 00:16:49
    of gold standard for entailment profiles
  • 00:16:50
    is the entirety of first order logic
  • 00:16:52
    which is beyond the scope of this stent
  • 00:16:54
    expain but those are the symbols on the
  • 00:16:55
    other sides the full Suite of if then
  • 00:16:57
    else not composed with any level of
  • 00:17:00
    complexity first sorder of logic is
  • 00:17:02
    great um it's not great to use as a
  • 00:17:05
    programmer because it happens to be NP
  • 00:17:07
    complete in fact it is the NP complete
  • 00:17:08
    problem it is the definitional problem
  • 00:17:11
    for very very hard problems to solve um
  • 00:17:13
    efficiently in computer science so we
  • 00:17:15
    have a lot of other profiles that do
  • 00:17:17
    less um and are less expressive but are
  • 00:17:19
    also calculable over large data sets you
  • 00:17:22
    know before the heat death of the
  • 00:17:23
    universe and the most important thing we
  • 00:17:25
    use these for is to get back some sort
  • 00:17:27
    of level of a schema kind of tell what
  • 00:17:29
    sort of statements are meaningful and
  • 00:17:30
    what aren't you know my date of birth
  • 00:17:33
    cannot be the color purple so if I have
  • 00:17:35
    a data set that says my date of birth is
  • 00:17:36
    the color purple I can use entailment
  • 00:17:39
    over schema to say no it's not I don't
  • 00:17:41
    accept that data into my database um and
  • 00:17:44
    same as is important because it really
  • 00:17:46
    helps with Federation I can say hey
  • 00:17:47
    these two concepts they start out as
  • 00:17:48
    separate Concepts but now I'm bringing
  • 00:17:50
    after the fact a third uh statement
  • 00:17:53
    which is these are actually the same
  • 00:17:54
    concept and then that means that I can
  • 00:17:55
    now query across that and reason across
  • 00:17:57
    that really effectively
  • 00:18:00
    and really there's a large sense in
  • 00:18:01
    which rdf and and all the entailment and
  • 00:18:04
    logic associated with the rdf ecosystem
  • 00:18:07
    is the cumulation of 20th century AI
  • 00:18:10
    which was all about symbol manipulation
  • 00:18:12
    formal logic rules based expert systems
  • 00:18:14
    you know you had psych trying to build a
  • 00:18:16
    database of every fact in the universe
  • 00:18:17
    and and make you know intelligence would
  • 00:18:19
    emerge and people were very optimistic
  • 00:18:21
    about that and all these things were
  • 00:18:22
    getting very funded uh and then it
  • 00:18:24
    turned out that that didn't actually
  • 00:18:25
    lead to general intelligence it's very
  • 00:18:27
    useful in programming systems l is
  • 00:18:29
    useful um but it's not it doesn't lead
  • 00:18:30
    to intelligence so these people all went
  • 00:18:32
    and built rdf
  • 00:18:35
    instead and they they brought these
  • 00:18:36
    Concepts specifically in a way that
  • 00:18:39
    works with the internet era where
  • 00:18:40
    everything is networked and everything
  • 00:18:41
    has the potential to be linked so that's
  • 00:18:44
    rdf 20 years later little paper out of
  • 00:18:47
    Google attention is all you need this
  • 00:18:50
    paper defines the Transformer
  • 00:18:52
    architecture which is the underlying
  • 00:18:53
    breakthrough that allows all the
  • 00:18:55
    language models to work um it has an
  • 00:18:57
    intention mechanism which basically
  • 00:18:59
    allows it to train on tokens like taking
  • 00:19:03
    their position into consideration but
  • 00:19:05
    also independent of their position in a
  • 00:19:06
    sequence and once you can train with
  • 00:19:08
    that kind of flexibility it just unlocks
  • 00:19:10
    everything that language models can do
  • 00:19:12
    today so National L uh natural language
  • 00:19:15
    processing as a discipline was
  • 00:19:16
    immediately revolutionized chat GPT came
  • 00:19:18
    out just five years later which is
  • 00:19:19
    lightning speed this was like on a tiny
  • 00:19:21
    little test demo data set and then they
  • 00:19:24
    built something uh giant off of it
  • 00:19:26
    really really fast and I don't need to
  • 00:19:28
    to describe how big a Mania it is right
  • 00:19:30
    now they're they're eating the world at
  • 00:19:31
    least from a hype point of view if not
  • 00:19:33
    from a actual productivity point of view
  • 00:19:35
    yet how do they work I can't tell you
  • 00:19:38
    well I can tell you but I cannot tell
  • 00:19:39
    you in the next 20 minutes so if you
  • 00:19:42
    want to do it go to this URL there's a
  • 00:19:43
    really great carpy walks through about
  • 00:19:45
    16 hours of dense video where he live
  • 00:19:47
    codes a mini GPT I followed through I
  • 00:19:49
    did it enclosure you can too you will
  • 00:19:51
    deeply understand this when you're done
  • 00:19:53
    um yeah I'm not going to talk anymore
  • 00:19:56
    about the internals of how the model
  • 00:19:57
    actually works scope um what I do care
  • 00:20:00
    about is like defining them and like how
  • 00:20:02
    do we use them and how should we think
  • 00:20:03
    about them as software
  • 00:20:04
    developers um
  • 00:20:07
    so the atmology is actually very
  • 00:20:09
    straightforward you take a measure and
  • 00:20:11
    you have the diminutive form of it a
  • 00:20:13
    small measure a model is a small measure
  • 00:20:16
    of something
  • 00:20:18
    and this is actually really um important
  • 00:20:21
    for what these things are what is a
  • 00:20:23
    model it's a measurement of something
  • 00:20:26
    what we're doing is we're taking
  • 00:20:27
    language we're measuring it we're
  • 00:20:29
    analyzing every aspect of language and
  • 00:20:31
    we're quantifying it as much as we can
  • 00:20:33
    and we're specifying the distances
  • 00:20:34
    between all the different concepts we're
  • 00:20:35
    putting language on a bench and building
  • 00:20:37
    a small copy and measuring it along
  • 00:20:38
    every Dimension there turns out to be
  • 00:20:40
    about you know hundreds of billions of
  • 00:20:41
    Dimensions which is why there's hundreds
  • 00:20:42
    of billions of
  • 00:20:44
    parameters
  • 00:20:46
    um so the act of generating from a
  • 00:20:48
    generative language model is to create
  • 00:20:50
    replicas based on those measurements hey
  • 00:20:52
    let's emit some language but if it fits
  • 00:20:54
    up with these measurements that's kind
  • 00:20:56
    of what the real language is or then it
  • 00:20:57
    looks and and acts like language because
  • 00:20:59
    it's based off of the same measurements
  • 00:21:00
    we
  • 00:21:02
    took and interestingly an rdf data set
  • 00:21:04
    is also called a model um kind of fits
  • 00:21:06
    more in the second definition here um
  • 00:21:08
    but it's also a set of measurements
  • 00:21:10
    about the world or a set of things I've
  • 00:21:11
    chosen to say about the
  • 00:21:14
    world so what are we modeling is a model
  • 00:21:17
    what aspects of language are we
  • 00:21:18
    measuring what are we capturing we're
  • 00:21:19
    capturing grammar and syntax and we've
  • 00:21:21
    actually been modeling grammar and
  • 00:21:22
    syntax since long before we had
  • 00:21:24
    computers um you can build a simple
  • 00:21:26
    rule-based generative grammar we'll talk
  • 00:21:28
    about that more later um and and build a
  • 00:21:30
    model but language models absolutely do
  • 00:21:32
    capture the grammar and the syntax as
  • 00:21:33
    well they also capture a lot of the
  • 00:21:36
    semantics
  • 00:21:38
    um how the words stand in relation to
  • 00:21:40
    each other remember C it's almost like
  • 00:21:42
    we've built a model of that definition
  • 00:21:45
    of words with respect to each other
  • 00:21:48
    because it captures a lot of semantics
  • 00:21:49
    and actually the attention mechanism
  • 00:21:50
    lets you capture the semantics
  • 00:21:53
    contextually right which matters you
  • 00:21:55
    like it's not just defining the words
  • 00:21:56
    it's also if you have the semantics and
  • 00:21:58
    then the itics of the word in different
  • 00:21:59
    situations that's language that's um
  • 00:22:03
    what we're building a model of also the
  • 00:22:04
    pragmatics how you use it in practice
  • 00:22:06
    what the colloquialisms are how people
  • 00:22:07
    tend to
  • 00:22:08
    talk it also captures a lot of patterns
  • 00:22:11
    and this is where we can get in trouble
  • 00:22:13
    and I don't want to talk about too much
  • 00:22:14
    about this because it's a it's a bit of
  • 00:22:16
    a rabbit hole but it will pick up on
  • 00:22:18
    fact patterns uh if it sees a pattern
  • 00:22:21
    enough in the wild it will be able to
  • 00:22:22
    reproduce it pretty reliably but that's
  • 00:22:24
    not the same thing as knowing a pack a
  • 00:22:25
    fact as to be trained on a fact pattern
  • 00:22:28
    and has reasoning patterns if it sees
  • 00:22:29
    like a certain way of thinking enough in
  • 00:22:31
    its training data it can reproduce those
  • 00:22:33
    with some fair amount of accuracy or
  • 00:22:35
    even produce things by analogy or
  • 00:22:36
    extensions of them does that count as
  • 00:22:38
    true reasoning um not in the way
  • 00:22:41
    somebody writing an INF engine would
  • 00:22:43
    think of it um and it's certainly not
  • 00:22:45
    100%
  • 00:22:47
    reliable for a programmer what's the API
  • 00:22:50
    I want to use them we have a model we
  • 00:22:52
    have all the measurements of language
  • 00:22:53
    how do I how do I take measurements how
  • 00:22:54
    do I get things out of here uh this is
  • 00:22:56
    the entire API of language model it's a
  • 00:22:58
    pure function that predicts the next
  • 00:23:00
    token um all I've done is emitted a bit
  • 00:23:02
    of high school level algebra and um in
  • 00:23:05
    those three dots there but then I get
  • 00:23:07
    the probabilities of the next token
  • 00:23:09
    given a sequence of all the previous
  • 00:23:11
    tokens um and that really works and if I
  • 00:23:13
    want to get many tokens I just iterate
  • 00:23:15
    over that and choose the most probable
  • 00:23:17
    one at each step simple recursive
  • 00:23:20
    function generating text you know what I
  • 00:23:22
    admitted is that it's a very true
  • 00:23:24
    statement that I emitted some high
  • 00:23:26
    school level algebra in there um it
  • 00:23:28
    happens to be a trillion is floating
  • 00:23:30
    Point operations and about uh you know
  • 00:23:32
    hundreds of billions of constants um so
  • 00:23:34
    it really doesn't fit on the slide but
  • 00:23:36
    that's all model is it's a pure function
  • 00:23:38
    and it's a pure function that does math
  • 00:23:39
    and has some constants in
  • 00:23:41
    it that's what training is is finding
  • 00:23:43
    the constants for the
  • 00:23:46
    function so how does it work I give it a
  • 00:23:48
    sequence I say Mary had a little and
  • 00:23:50
    because it sees in patterns all over the
  • 00:23:52
    Internet it says lamb that is by far the
  • 00:23:54
    most likely answer because that's a very
  • 00:23:56
    common little rhyme in the English
  • 00:23:58
    language
  • 00:24:01
    langage I say Mozart had a
  • 00:24:03
    little well it's it's not lamb that
  • 00:24:05
    doesn't make sense it's a sister why
  • 00:24:08
    does it say sister I don't know could
  • 00:24:10
    have been anything bit star those are
  • 00:24:12
    less common than sister but you know
  • 00:24:13
    they're very they're up there also star
  • 00:24:16
    is up there because you know moart wrote
  • 00:24:18
    the music for Twinkle Twinkle Little
  • 00:24:20
    Star which is probably captured in the
  • 00:24:22
    internet it turns out that the reason
  • 00:24:23
    sister is up there and brother is not is
  • 00:24:25
    that moart does have a sister and he did
  • 00:24:27
    not have a brother
  • 00:24:28
    so you can see we're start of capturing
  • 00:24:31
    fact patterns from the training data but
  • 00:24:33
    also not in a 100% reliable
  • 00:24:36
    way it's just kind of all in the
  • 00:24:39
    stats incidentally the sister was older
  • 00:24:41
    so this is an incorrect
  • 00:24:43
    fact but just because he had a sister
  • 00:24:46
    that that bumps up the probability of
  • 00:24:47
    that
  • 00:24:48
    word so I want I want to add this to my
  • 00:24:51
    toolbox I have a bunch of tools um it's
  • 00:24:53
    great that I can like use this model to
  • 00:24:56
    kind of academically understand language
  • 00:24:58
    um I have a lot of tools at my disposal
  • 00:25:00
    to do that and I want to add this tool
  • 00:25:01
    to my toolbox but I'm still trying to
  • 00:25:03
    figure out how to use it and how to get
  • 00:25:05
    it to do what I want it to do and do
  • 00:25:06
    something useful and be on a chatbot you
  • 00:25:08
    know chatbots are great I think we've
  • 00:25:10
    fully explored the capabilities of J jpt
  • 00:25:13
    all on our own now we want to build more
  • 00:25:15
    interesting things that maybe provide a
  • 00:25:16
    little more societal
  • 00:25:17
    value well if I have a pure function and
  • 00:25:20
    I want to get different output what are
  • 00:25:22
    my
  • 00:25:23
    options I can either find a different
  • 00:25:25
    function but I don't have millions of
  • 00:25:26
    dollars to train a new function so my
  • 00:25:29
    options are I can change the input it's
  • 00:25:31
    literally mathematically the only thing
  • 00:25:33
    I can do to get different results or
  • 00:25:35
    better results out of a language model
  • 00:25:37
    and this is the entire field of um quote
  • 00:25:40
    unquote AI programming is putting the
  • 00:25:42
    right stuff into the model to try to get
  • 00:25:44
    it to get out the stuff that you
  • 00:25:47
    want where does this data come from you
  • 00:25:49
    can have human input like a chatbot or a
  • 00:25:51
    programmer manually putting an input you
  • 00:25:53
    can have an old fashioned program like a
  • 00:25:55
    regular program that builds a bunch of
  • 00:25:56
    strings and concat stuff and then sends
  • 00:25:58
    them off to the model you can have the
  • 00:26:00
    result of one model feed into another
  • 00:26:02
    model or the same model invoked
  • 00:26:03
    recursively and really any combination
  • 00:26:06
    of the above and all of AI programming
  • 00:26:09
    unless you're working on the models
  • 00:26:10
    themselves is some combination of these
  • 00:26:14
    altering the inputs of the function in
  • 00:26:16
    various ways and building programs to
  • 00:26:17
    programmatically alter the inputs of the
  • 00:26:19
    functions there's a bunch of patterns
  • 00:26:21
    for this um this is just descriptive
  • 00:26:23
    this is how people are using these out
  • 00:26:25
    in the world the simplest one is prompt
  • 00:26:26
    engineering if I have user input and
  • 00:26:28
    maybe a history of past messages how do
  • 00:26:30
    I get the the this the language model to
  • 00:26:34
    act different or emit different things I
  • 00:26:36
    give it a system prompt I may say Talk
  • 00:26:38
    Like a Pirate or emit Json right that's
  • 00:26:41
    the system prompt prompt it's not
  • 00:26:43
    engineering it's just trying to find
  • 00:26:45
    stuff and experimenting around with the
  • 00:26:47
    model this one's really gaining a lot of
  • 00:26:49
    popularity which is um you know you want
  • 00:26:51
    to sometimes feed real information into
  • 00:26:53
    the model that maybe it can't reliably
  • 00:26:55
    get out of its internals so you take the
  • 00:26:58
    user input you pass it to a search
  • 00:26:59
    engine could be a keyword based search
  • 00:27:00
    engine sematic search doesn't really
  • 00:27:02
    matter and you pass the topend results
  • 00:27:03
    along with your system prompt and the
  • 00:27:04
    user input into the model right and
  • 00:27:09
    assuming your search is good assuming
  • 00:27:10
    the data that you want to talk about or
  • 00:27:11
    you want the model to to uh relay to you
  • 00:27:14
    is assuming the data is there models do
  • 00:27:17
    a good job the attention mechanism is
  • 00:27:18
    actually pretty reliable at kind of
  • 00:27:20
    zeroing in on the the relevant parts of
  • 00:27:22
    the input data of course if your search
  • 00:27:24
    wasn't good um and you don't have good
  • 00:27:26
    recall and the answer you actually
  • 00:27:27
    wanted is not in the topend results the
  • 00:27:29
    model is back to bullshitting and it
  • 00:27:31
    will not be able to give you reliable
  • 00:27:34
    information okay so an extenstion of
  • 00:27:36
    that is we're going to invoke the model
  • 00:27:38
    twice we're going to invoke the model
  • 00:27:39
    and we're going to give it our database
  • 00:27:40
    schema and a question from the user
  • 00:27:42
    we're going to say write some SQL that
  • 00:27:44
    answers this
  • 00:27:45
    question and this actually works for
  • 00:27:47
    simple queries and simple databases um
  • 00:27:49
    you get the results from the database
  • 00:27:51
    then you call the model again with all
  • 00:27:52
    those results and uh the user input uh
  • 00:27:56
    and it works but it's completely reliant
  • 00:27:59
    on the ability of the model to generate
  • 00:28:00
    SQL code and to do so correctly and also
  • 00:28:02
    you can't code review it before it runs
  • 00:28:03
    if you're using it in
  • 00:28:05
    production so some issues with this but
  • 00:28:07
    people are using it effectively and and
  • 00:28:09
    if you can get your query simple enough
  • 00:28:10
    and your schema simple enough you can
  • 00:28:12
    get get some reliability up there
  • 00:28:14
    another big thing open AI just released
  • 00:28:16
    this feature a few weeks ago is tool use
  • 00:28:18
    I can alter my
  • 00:28:20
    inputs uh such that the model can emit
  • 00:28:24
    Json that matches a certain pattern
  • 00:28:26
    which then I can can pass off to an API
  • 00:28:29
    which may go to the side effect in the
  • 00:28:30
    world it could order a pizza and then it
  • 00:28:32
    can go back and feed it into the model
  • 00:28:34
    again so you know people talk about tool
  • 00:28:37
    use as if the model is doing something
  • 00:28:38
    incredible but all all it is is telling
  • 00:28:40
    the model to emit API calls and then
  • 00:28:43
    some external system has to observe
  • 00:28:45
    those and actually execute
  • 00:28:48
    them and the other big thing
  • 00:28:50
    that um is is really highly hyped these
  • 00:28:54
    days and there's a billion startups and
  • 00:28:56
    people are talking about this is you
  • 00:28:57
    know going to lead to AGI and whatnot um
  • 00:28:59
    is this concept of Agents all agents are
  • 00:29:01
    is arbitrary combinations of the above
  • 00:29:03
    patterns and invoking language models
  • 00:29:06
    recursively that's it at the end of the
  • 00:29:08
    day each model invocation is still a
  • 00:29:10
    pure function of input to output and
  • 00:29:11
    we're still just trying to Marshall up
  • 00:29:13
    the correct inputs at each phase and
  • 00:29:16
    this is actually I think closer building
  • 00:29:18
    a good Agent I think is closer to
  • 00:29:20
    traditional software engineering than it
  • 00:29:22
    is to you know magic AI programming
  • 00:29:28
    it is different from traditional
  • 00:29:29
    programming in one way did it work um
  • 00:29:31
    the model output is always going to be a
  • 00:29:32
    bit Opa it is going to be deterministic
  • 00:29:35
    but it will be opag and it can be
  • 00:29:36
    non-deterministic if you decide to turn
  • 00:29:38
    up the randomness
  • 00:29:40
    um it's not like regular programming
  • 00:29:42
    where once a function works on a variety
  • 00:29:44
    of test cases you can be pretty sure it
  • 00:29:46
    works um it needs to work across all
  • 00:29:49
    test cases and the only way to validate
  • 00:29:51
    that is to statistically um you have to
  • 00:29:54
    apply experimental techniques to
  • 00:29:56
    actually give it a variety of inputs and
  • 00:29:57
    then see see what your uh result uh
  • 00:30:00
    success rate is and do datadriven
  • 00:30:02
    analysis of the results and you need to
  • 00:30:04
    know your problem domain like for some
  • 00:30:06
    problem domains 90% accuracy may be
  • 00:30:08
    great um for other domains you may need
  • 00:30:11
    five nines of accuracy um probably not
  • 00:30:13
    going to get that from language model
  • 00:30:15
    ever but you need to know what that
  • 00:30:17
    number
  • 00:30:20
    is all right so that's the state of
  • 00:30:24
    language model programming today um all
  • 00:30:28
    the fur and activity and I can't keep up
  • 00:30:30
    with all of it but everything I have
  • 00:30:31
    kept up with and have read falls into
  • 00:30:32
    two categories it's either improving the
  • 00:30:34
    models themselves and like the the core
  • 00:30:36
    data science used to train them or it's
  • 00:30:38
    working on what are techniques for
  • 00:30:41
    giving the models better inputs so that
  • 00:30:43
    we can get better outputs and what kind
  • 00:30:44
    of programs can we write up as a
  • 00:30:46
    scaffolding around the models to to
  • 00:30:48
    formulate those
  • 00:30:52
    prompts um mix success this is a very
  • 00:30:55
    active field sometimes they work well
  • 00:30:56
    sometimes they don't
  • 00:31:00
    one problem
  • 00:31:02
    well one thing I do well in programming
  • 00:31:05
    we all do well here is uh data and logic
  • 00:31:07
    we've been working with data and Logic
  • 00:31:09
    for quite some time business logic data
  • 00:31:11
    databases we're all very comfortable
  • 00:31:12
    with those um and we write programs that
  • 00:31:15
    work between them a lot we also have
  • 00:31:18
    language um now we can now work with
  • 00:31:21
    language using the techniques I just
  • 00:31:23
    described but it's still how do I get my
  • 00:31:26
    data to meet my language
  • 00:31:28
    right I I can just shove it in the
  • 00:31:29
    prompt and I have to shove it in the
  • 00:31:31
    prompt the context the input to the pure
  • 00:31:34
    function that's the only thing I can do
  • 00:31:37
    there is no other way I can make my data
  • 00:31:40
    accessible to a system what what's the
  • 00:31:43
    best way to do
  • 00:31:45
    that what possible technology kind of
  • 00:31:47
    lives in the intersection of data and
  • 00:31:50
    logic and language um that kind of has a
  • 00:31:53
    foot in each World such that I can work
  • 00:31:54
    with it in a very data way on the data
  • 00:31:56
    side and work it with it in a very
  • 00:31:57
    language way on the language
  • 00:31:59
    side and obviously this is a leading
  • 00:32:02
    question it is rdf
  • 00:32:06
    um so we should be putting rdf data in
  • 00:32:09
    our prompts and when we are asking to
  • 00:32:11
    get kind of more structured data out of
  • 00:32:12
    models we should be asking for it in rdf
  • 00:32:14
    format and this works quite
  • 00:32:17
    well so at a syntactic level
  • 00:32:21
    um well let's step back and talk about n
  • 00:32:25
    Chomsky always love to do that good old
  • 00:32:28
    gnome he's still kicking around um this
  • 00:32:31
    book uh establishes the concept of a
  • 00:32:34
    generative grammar which is a language
  • 00:32:36
    model it is a simple language model that
  • 00:32:37
    fits on a page that that math right
  • 00:32:40
    there is his language model it's a
  • 00:32:41
    generative grammar of language and how
  • 00:32:42
    it works he built it based on observing
  • 00:32:45
    many languages and trying to kind of
  • 00:32:46
    figure out what is the essence of
  • 00:32:48
    language or this language particular
  • 00:32:49
    languages or all languages um try
  • 00:32:52
    believed that there's a biological basis
  • 00:32:54
    these rules are actually in human brains
  • 00:32:56
    that there was like some mutation that
  • 00:32:58
    gave us these rules um and that's why
  • 00:33:00
    humans are language using
  • 00:33:01
    creatures um and you know this is
  • 00:33:04
    different for every actual language but
  • 00:33:06
    one thing that is super foundational is
  • 00:33:08
    subjects predicates and objects or
  • 00:33:10
    subjects verbs and objects you know
  • 00:33:13
    there are languages that kind of stretch
  • 00:33:14
    the definition in one way or another or
  • 00:33:16
    leave it a little bit more confusing but
  • 00:33:17
    there's something pretty fundamental um
  • 00:33:19
    to cognition in this and that's what CH
  • 00:33:21
    is exploring in this book and so when
  • 00:33:24
    you go back to a language model because
  • 00:33:25
    the language model is trained on
  • 00:33:27
    language those concepts are also sort of
  • 00:33:29
    baked into language model they are
  • 00:33:31
    captured they are measured as part of
  • 00:33:33
    the model making process the process of
  • 00:33:35
    measuring and so rdf is really
  • 00:33:38
    surprisingly good at going forth back
  • 00:33:40
    and forth between natural language and
  • 00:33:42
    rdf you can go to any snit of text and
  • 00:33:45
    paste it into chat GPT and say give the
  • 00:33:47
    facts here an rdf format and if you
  • 00:33:49
    wanted to do an even better job you can
  • 00:33:50
    say give me the facts and here's the the
  • 00:33:52
    predicates I really care about you know
  • 00:33:54
    given this list of predicates find
  • 00:33:56
    anything in here that could be to those
  • 00:33:58
    predicates and give it to me in rdf
  • 00:33:59
    format and the other way works well too
  • 00:34:01
    you can give it rdf data and then just
  • 00:34:02
    have a conversation with that data
  • 00:34:04
    really easily um and it works better in
  • 00:34:07
    my experience than you know trying to
  • 00:34:09
    upload csvs or spreadsheets or any of
  • 00:34:11
    the other ways you can get structured
  • 00:34:12
    data into a model because they're just
  • 00:34:14
    statements and the difference between a
  • 00:34:16
    statement in language and a statement in
  • 00:34:19
    rdf is not that big a conceptual
  • 00:34:23
    lead tool use it also does a good job of
  • 00:34:26
    tool use there are many things that
  • 00:34:27
    currently people people use to use
  • 00:34:29
    four say I have this question who are
  • 00:34:31
    Luke's parents and I want to ask it of
  • 00:34:33
    the model and I want it to use a variant
  • 00:34:36
    of tool use which is the query
  • 00:34:37
    generation right say I want to do this
  • 00:34:40
    with rdf the model can emit an rdf query
  • 00:34:44
    Luke is the child of who right it can
  • 00:34:46
    convert that statement that English
  • 00:34:49
    statement in or that English question
  • 00:34:52
    into this rdf
  • 00:34:54
    question and here's where rdf shines so
  • 00:34:56
    far this is not that different than SQL
  • 00:34:58
    right it's just a different query
  • 00:35:00
    format what if my rdf implementation
  • 00:35:03
    supports
  • 00:35:05
    reasoning now the language model is
  • 00:35:06
    asking a different question who is Luke
  • 00:35:08
    a descendant of it's a different
  • 00:35:10
    question I can ask but the language
  • 00:35:12
    model doesn't know any
  • 00:35:14
    different it's to the language model
  • 00:35:16
    this is exactly the same sort of
  • 00:35:17
    question where we're quering about a
  • 00:35:19
    property of Luke even though under the
  • 00:35:21
    hood there's probably like a bunch of
  • 00:35:22
    data log rules firing to answer this
  • 00:35:24
    question and return the result set but
  • 00:35:26
    the key point is all that complexities
  • 00:35:28
    abstracted out of the model and if you
  • 00:35:30
    did something like that in SQL you would
  • 00:35:31
    have to like put all that in the model
  • 00:35:35
    and make its tool use is much more
  • 00:35:36
    complex so rdf really simplifies tool
  • 00:35:39
    use for um at least as far as tool use
  • 00:35:41
    involves calculating
  • 00:35:44
    data and you can even ask it like super
  • 00:35:46
    complex questions that are much more
  • 00:35:48
    open-ended over structured data who am I
  • 00:35:51
    or what is the relationship between Luke
  • 00:35:53
    and
  • 00:35:54
    rembrand you know that's that's a very
  • 00:35:56
    open-ended question language model can't
  • 00:35:57
    answer it but if I have a full
  • 00:35:59
    genealogical database and I have the
  • 00:36:01
    correct inference rules in there this
  • 00:36:03
    query can precisely answer you know
  • 00:36:05
    Lucas REM Brand's 13 times removed great
  • 00:36:08
    uncle which is true um he is actually
  • 00:36:11
    way back there in the family tree but
  • 00:36:14
    that's structured data that is that is a
  • 00:36:16
    true fact that's not like a a maybe a
  • 00:36:18
    fact pattern that it maybe saw somewhere
  • 00:36:19
    on the internet that's actually real
  • 00:36:21
    logic and reasoning that gives me that
  • 00:36:25
    answer let's talk about semantics
  • 00:36:29
    well we know language models model
  • 00:36:31
    semantics how do language models model
  • 00:36:32
    semantics
  • 00:36:34
    well it's hard to get into it in our
  • 00:36:36
    remaining time um but stated briefly
  • 00:36:40
    there is models have what's called a
  • 00:36:42
    latent space which is a high dimensional
  • 00:36:44
    Vector space um technically it's a
  • 00:36:47
    semantic field with a distance metric um
  • 00:36:49
    but it's basically um a mathematical
  • 00:36:52
    high-dimensional mathematical construct
  • 00:36:54
    such that two points that are close in
  • 00:36:56
    this mathematical space are Al closely
  • 00:36:58
    reled somehow um
  • 00:37:01
    conceptually this is really abstract
  • 00:37:03
    though this this latent space of a model
  • 00:37:04
    these things are pretty opaque uh
  • 00:37:06
    there's a lot of research on how to
  • 00:37:07
    observe them how to interpret them
  • 00:37:11
    um but you know they're mostly opaque to
  • 00:37:14
    humans even though they are a
  • 00:37:15
    measurement of language it's just a
  • 00:37:17
    mathematical object with you know
  • 00:37:19
    thousands and thousands of Dimensions
  • 00:37:21
    it's the human brain doesn't easily wrap
  • 00:37:23
    around it well how does rdf model data
  • 00:37:26
    rdf models data as a graph or concepts
  • 00:37:29
    that are linked to other Concepts the
  • 00:37:31
    human brain is pretty good at at
  • 00:37:32
    grasping data in this
  • 00:37:35
    format
  • 00:37:37
    so you know a Knowledge Graph linked
  • 00:37:40
    resources I have a bunch of
  • 00:37:43
    information what you can do conceptually
  • 00:37:46
    and I'm still working on the best ways
  • 00:37:48
    to do this in practice is you can
  • 00:37:50
    project your rdf conceptual map into the
  • 00:37:54
    conceptual space you can embed your
  • 00:37:57
    concrete logical symbols and Concepts
  • 00:37:59
    into the conceptual space and this does
  • 00:38:02
    a few things it gives you
  • 00:38:03
    interpretability of that conceptual lat
  • 00:38:05
    in
  • 00:38:07
    space you can say you know you can say
  • 00:38:11
    oh this region of that space that's
  • 00:38:13
    where that fact landed that tells me
  • 00:38:16
    something about the topology of the
  • 00:38:17
    space I can kind of overlay them on top
  • 00:38:18
    of each
  • 00:38:19
    other so it also gives me
  • 00:38:22
    insights I might say hey I had these two
  • 00:38:24
    entities that I embedded in the model
  • 00:38:27
    and landed pretty close I'd never
  • 00:38:29
    thought of them as close before maybe I
  • 00:38:30
    should explore that relationship kind of
  • 00:38:33
    a soft way right so if you're trying to
  • 00:38:36
    do exploratory information based on the
  • 00:38:38
    data you have that can be really
  • 00:38:41
    interesting the other thing you can do
  • 00:38:43
    is soft
  • 00:38:44
    inference right so what's one of the
  • 00:38:46
    reasons the semantic web
  • 00:38:47
    failed or indeed why did attempts to
  • 00:38:51
    solve AI with rule-based systems and
  • 00:38:53
    logic alone
  • 00:38:54
    fail it's because the world is more full
  • 00:38:57
    of rules than anyone ever has the
  • 00:38:58
    patience to write down there are so many
  • 00:39:01
    aspects of the world um common knowledge
  • 00:39:04
    um implicit assumptions that it is
  • 00:39:07
    impossible to enumerate them all as a
  • 00:39:09
    human and people try go look up the
  • 00:39:11
    psych project coic they really
  • 00:39:13
    tried um but it's hard and even if I did
  • 00:39:17
    it my rdf graph would soon grow
  • 00:39:21
    intractably
  • 00:39:24
    large but what the language model can do
  • 00:39:27
    is it can kind of give me for like
  • 00:39:28
    really implicit things that are
  • 00:39:31
    obvious I can just ask the language
  • 00:39:33
    model to give me rdf expressing the
  • 00:39:35
    relationship between arbitrary objects
  • 00:39:37
    and it'll just spit out a set of facts
  • 00:39:38
    that are most likely true right because
  • 00:39:41
    they're they're kind of implicit in the
  • 00:39:42
    world and they're implicit in what has
  • 00:39:44
    been trained into the
  • 00:39:46
    model they may not be 100% accurate
  • 00:39:48
    again models are probabilistic that's
  • 00:39:49
    why I call this soft
  • 00:39:51
    inference but it means that we now have
  • 00:39:53
    kind of like we have the hard inference
  • 00:39:54
    of our reasoning system our our
  • 00:39:56
    inference engine we have the soft reason
  • 00:39:58
    of the language model and if you combine
  • 00:40:00
    those together you can do a lot of
  • 00:40:01
    reasoning that you couldn't do with
  • 00:40:02
    either one alone and I think that's a
  • 00:40:04
    pretty compelling this is the central
  • 00:40:07
    Insight behind what's called neuros
  • 00:40:08
    symbolic AI it's a small subfield of of
  • 00:40:10
    AI research um it's basically anything
  • 00:40:15
    any research that is trying to combine
  • 00:40:18
    uh the abstract fuzzy neural network
  • 00:40:20
    with hard concrete logical symbols and
  • 00:40:22
    there's a bunch of different approaches
  • 00:40:23
    for it some people are using prologue to
  • 00:40:25
    do this um kind of exactly the same way
  • 00:40:27
    I describ for rdf but doing it with
  • 00:40:29
    prologue instead of rdf um other people
  • 00:40:31
    are like actually trying to encode
  • 00:40:34
    symbols as items in this dimensional
  • 00:40:36
    Vector space and then use that for
  • 00:40:38
    training the models there's a lot of
  • 00:40:39
    complicated things people are doing
  • 00:40:42
    um U but if you're you're interested in
  • 00:40:44
    this you know this is Def this approach
  • 00:40:46
    of using rdf to interact with language
  • 00:40:47
    models is definitely a sub it's it's a
  • 00:40:50
    specific approach to neuros symbolic
  • 00:40:53
    AI so finally um
  • 00:40:57
    you know the biggest problem I think we
  • 00:40:59
    have with AI is a lot of people are
  • 00:41:00
    using it for the wrong things um and you
  • 00:41:02
    know I I don't want it to do my writing
  • 00:41:05
    for me or my singing for me or my music
  • 00:41:07
    playing for me um I don't even
  • 00:41:09
    necessarily want it to do my coding for
  • 00:41:11
    me like I I find the code it produce
  • 00:41:13
    kind of slop um but I do a lot of
  • 00:41:17
    programming is dishes and laundry the
  • 00:41:19
    dishes and laundry of data just like you
  • 00:41:21
    were saying earlier and uh particularly
  • 00:41:24
    on the data side so I think is a tool to
  • 00:41:28
    actually automate a lot of the dishes
  • 00:41:29
    and the laundry of working with data and
  • 00:41:34
    I'm trying to build it I'm this is what
  • 00:41:36
    I'm working on now and if anyone is
  • 00:41:37
    interested in talking about that um I'd
  • 00:41:39
    love to chat with you so yeah we're
  • 00:41:41
    going to bring back the CTIC web with uh
  • 00:41:43
    s mayi under the hood all right thanks
Tags
  • RDF
  • language models
  • AI ethics
  • technology
  • knowledge representation
  • semantic web
  • neurosymbolic AI
  • Transformer
  • data modeling