IVADO and the Simons Institute launch their thematic semester on Large Language Models and Transformers

Montreal, November 27, 2024 – IVADO is proud to announce the opening of registrations for its first thematic semester, organized in collaboration with the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. Titled “Large Language Models and Transformers,” this program will take place from January to May 2025 in Berkeley, California.

The primary objective of this program, organized as part of the partnership between IVADO and the Simons Institute and the year-long special program on Large Language Models (LLMs) and Transformers that began at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, is to explore the ongoing revolution in these fields through a broad lens, within a relaxed setting that fosters discussion, debate, and cross-pollination of ideas.

The focus will be on how these models are reshaping our understanding of grammar, semantics, cognitive representations, and computational approaches in neuroscience. Practical issues, such as reducing the complexity of training algorithms and scaling laws, will be given special attention to better understand the emergence of complex skills in LLMs. Societal implications, including the alignment of human values with AI decisions, reliability, interpretability, system security, and fairness, will also be discussed. The legal and regulatory dimensions of these technological developments will be a key component of the program.

Three collaborative workshops, which will be held in Berkeley, California, are scheduled for the spring of 2025 to dive deeper into these topics. They will be organized by a scientific committee comprising Yoshua Bengio (Université de Montréal), Siva Reddy (McGill University), Yejin Choi (NVidia), Boaz Barak (Harvard University), Sasha Rush (Cornell University), Surbhi Goel (University of Pennsylvania), as well as Shafi Goldwasser and Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley).

The partnership will welcome 8-10 researchers and students from Canadian universities as long-term visitors to the program. Travel grants are also available to support the workshop participation of those who wish to benefit from this unique exchange opportunity.

All registration information and details on how to apply for a travel grant can be found on the thematic program page on the IVADO website.