We explore which linguistic factors -- at the sentence and token level -- play an important role in influencing language model predictions, and investigate whether these are reflective of results found in humans and human corpora (Gries and Kootstra, 2017). We make use of the structural priming paradigm, where recent exposure to a structure facilitates processing of the same structure. We don't only investigate whether, but also where priming effects occur, and what factors predict them. We show that these effects can be explained via the inverse frequency effect, known in human priming, where rarer elements within a prime increase priming effects, as well as lexical dependence between prime and target. Our results provide an important piece in the puzzle of understanding how properties within their context affect structural prediction in language models.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but today's AI is not as advanced as robo-graders want you to think. If someone you love depends on the SATs or GREs this should trouble you. A recent article by NPR discussed the use of computers to robo-grade essays in exams such as the SAT and GRE. Developers interviewed in the article claim that "computers are already doing jobs as complicated and as fraught as driving cars, detecting cancer, and carrying on conversations, they can certainly handle grading students' essays." According to AI researcher and Assistant Professor Zack Lipton at Carnegie Mellon University, "machine learning can find complex patterns, but all it's doing is discovering associations in the data. For a model to output reasonably correlated predictions, it will use whatever associations it can discover."

In the wake of the Parkland school shooting, President Trump is meeting with video game executives and members of congress to discuss the role of simulated violence and the impact on America's youth. They called it the "Filthy 15." Fifteen songs from 15 bands or artists that the Parents Music Resource Center found offensive due to explicit content. The PMRC's leaders were Susan Baker, wife of then-Treasury Secretary James Baker, and Tipper Gore. Gore was wife of then-Sen. The acts in question were Prince, AC/DC, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Black Sabbath, Sheena Easton and Vanity.

Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business section. Pharmaceutical company Mylan is still in the news after hiking the price of life-saving EpiPens by more than 400%. But keep this in mind: Of roughly 250 million raised for and against 17 ballot measures coming before California voters in November, more than a quarter of that amount -- about 70 million -- has been contributed by deep-pocketed drug companies to defeat the Drug Price Relief Act, which would limit drug prices charged to state healthcare programs. Spending on the measure could set a state record over coming weeks. No buzz kill: New federal rules for small commercial drones go into effect Monday.