Machine-learning algorithms that generate fluent language from vast amounts of text could change how science is done -- but not necessarily for the better, says Shobita Parthasarathy, a specialist in the governance of emerging technologies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In a report published on 27 April, Parthasarathy and other researchers try to anticipate societal impacts of emerging artificial-intelligence (AI) technologies called large language models (LLMs). These can churn out astonishingly convincing prose, translate between languages, answer questions and even produce code. The corporations building them -- including Google, Facebook and Microsoft -- aim to use them in chatbots and search engines, and to summarize documents. They sometimes parrot errors or problematic stereotypes in the millions or billions of documents they're trained on.

Machine-learning algorithms that generate fluent language from vast amounts of text could change how science is done -- but not necessarily for the better, says Shobita Parthasarathy, a specialist in the governance of emerging technologies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In a report published on 27 April, Parthasarathy and other researchers try to anticipate societal impacts of emerging artificial-intelligence (AI) technologies called large language models (LLMs). These can churn out astonishingly convincing prose, translate between languages, answer questions and even produce code. The corporations building them -- including Google, Facebook and Microsoft -- aim to use them in chatbots and search engines, and to summarize documents. They sometimes parrot errors or problematic stereotypes in the millions or billions of documents they're trained on.

Shobita Parthasarathy says that LLMs could help to advance research, but their use should be regulated. Machine-learning algorithms that generate fluent language from vast amounts of text could change how science is done -- but not necessarily for the better, says Shobita Parthasarathy, a specialist in the governance of emerging technologies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In a report published on 27 April, Parthasarathy and other researchers try to anticipate societal impacts of emerging artificial-intelligence (AI) technologies called large language models (LLMs). These can churn out astonishingly convincing prose, translate between languages, answer questions and even produce code. The corporations building them -- including Google, Facebook and Microsoft -- aim to use them in chatbots and search engines, and to summarize documents. They sometimes parrot errors or problematic stereotypes in the millions or billions of documents they're trained on.