Chinchilla is a family of large language models (LLMs) developed by the research team at Google DeepMind, presented in March 2022. == Models == It is named "chinchilla" because it is a further development over a previous model family named Gopher. Both model families were trained in order to investigate the scaling laws of large language models. It claimed to outperform GPT-3. It considerably simplifies downstream utilization because it requires much less computer power for inference and fine-tuning. Based on the training of previously employed language models, it has been determined that if one doubles the model size, one must also have twice the number of training tokens. This hypothesis has been used to train Chinchilla by DeepMind. Similar to Gopher in terms of cost, Chinchilla has 70B parameters and four times as much data. Chinchilla has an average accuracy of 67.5% on the Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark, which is 7% higher than Gopher's performance. Chinchilla was still in the testing phase as of January 12, 2023. Chinchilla contributes to developing an effective training paradigm for large autoregressive language models with limited compute resources. The Chinchilla team recommends that the number of training tokens is twice for every model size doubling, meaning that using larger, higher-quality training datasets can lead to better results on downstream tasks. It has been used for the Flamingo vision-language model. == Architecture == Both the Gopher family and Chinchilla family are families of transformer models. In particular, they are essentially the same as GPT-2, with different sizes and minor modifications. Gopher family uses RMSNorm instead of LayerNorm; relative positional encoding rather than absolute positional encoding. The Chinchilla family is the same as the Gopher family, but trained with AdamW instead of Adam optimizer. The Gopher family contains six models of increasing size, from 44 million parameters to 280 billion parameters. They refer to the largest one as "Gopher" by default. Similar naming conventions apply for the Chinchilla family. Table 1 of shows the entire Gopher family: Table 4 of compares the 70-billion-parameter Chinchilla with Gopher 280B.
Human-centered AI
Human-centered AI is the initiative at the intersection of the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and human-computer interaction (HCI) to develop AI systems in a way that prioritizes human values, needs, and general flourishing. Emphasis is placed on the recognition that artificial intelligence systems are rapidly changing, and will continue to influence, many aspects of the human experience, in areas ranging from scientific inquiry, governance and policy, labor and the economy, and creative expression, with an aim set to adapt current developments and guide future developments on a trajectory which is most beneficial to the human population at large, with the goal of augmenting human intelligence and capacities across these areas, as opposed to replacing them. Particular attention is paid to mitigating negative effects of AI automation on the livelihoods of the labor force, the use of AI in healthcare fields, and imbuing AI systems with societal values. Human-centered AI is linked to related endeavors in AI alignment and AI safety, but while these fields primarily focus on mitigating risks posed by AI that is unaligned to human values and/or uncontrollable AI self-development, human-centered AI places significant focus in exploring how AI systems can augment human capacities and serve as collaborators. == Conceptual history == The importance of the alignment of artificial intelligence development towards human values in some sense predates artificial intelligence itself, as before the modern conception of artificial intelligence as coined at the 1956 Dartmouth Workshop, the conception of robots as constructed, autonomous agents entered the cultural consciousness as early as the 1920s, with Karel Capek's Rossum's Universal Robots. The imagined issues relating to robots' aims and values requiring intentional alignment and direction with those of humans followed soon after, most widely known from science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, dating to his 1942 short story “Runaround”. Two of the three eponymous laws are directly concerned with robots’ interaction with and positioned deference towards humans, and have in recent times been reexamined in the face of modern AI. In 1985, after artificial intelligence research had taken off and its effects were more acutely conceptualized, Asimov added a Rule Zero, treating robots' relationship with humanity as a whole, distinct from individual humans. While modern artificial intelligence is largely distinct from robotics, the conceptualization of both robots and AI systems as autonomous agents positions this as a foundation for conceptions of human-centered AI. Aside from robots, artificially intelligent autonomous agents in interaction with humans have been conceived of for at least 75 years. In 1950, Alan Turing published his famous "Imitation Game", often also called the Turing Test, a thought experiment that uses human-machine interaction as an assessor for the intelligence of a system. In recent times, artificial intelligence researchers such as Stanford's Erik Brynjolfsson have conceived of rapid AI development leading to a so-called "Turing Trap". == Augmentation and automation == A major stated aim of human-centered AI is to promote the development of AI in ways that augment human capabilities, rather than replacing them. To this end, organizations and initiatives that take a human-centered approach to AI development focus on frameworks that encourage collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence systems to build towards even greater progress, rather than attempting to automate tasks currently handled by humans. Such avenues include everything from data visualization for big data, allowing human engineers to better understand extremely large datasets, allowing for the design of better machine learning models to handle them, to AI-powered sensors to monitor vitals, allowing for better responsiveness from healthcare providers. Many human-centered AI initiatives often position it as a better alternative to the apparent mainstream in AI development, which is primarily concerned with automation. Driven by the pressures of the market economy, AI development that does replace tasks currently performed by humans with automated processes is incentivized, as it allows for greater profit margins; this often comes at the detriment of the human whose performance is replaced, thus leading to an environment wherein human workers are outcompeted by AI systems across various service-sector and technology-based industries. At the same time, automation and augmentation are not always incompatible; a major aim of human-centered AI is towards the automation of rote tasks that would otherwise hinder a human’s productivity or creativity, freeing them to direct their energy and intelligence towards higher-level tasks, thus achieving augmentation through automation. Empirical research in pharmaceutical sales has shown that a human-centered implementation - where work procedures, training, and incentives are designed around individuals' cognitive needs - improves augmentation performance, while implementation without such adaptation can worsen outcomes relative to a legacy system. == Research == Much of the work done on human-centered AI comes from research institutes, within universities, companies, and as freestanding organizations. The Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (abbreviated to HAI) is one such group, engaging academics, industry professionals, and policymakers centered in Stanford University to conduct research and inform policy in various areas in human-centered AI, including on aspects of the intelligence itself, augmentation, and on measuring the impacts of AI systems on sociopolitcal and cultural institutions. Similar groups exist at other universities, including the Chicago Human + AI (CHAI) Lab at the University of Chicago, the HCAI@GU group at the University of Gothenburg, and the Human-Centered AI (HAI) Lab at the University of Oxford. Outside of the academy, companies such as IBM have research initiatives dedicated to advancements in human-centered AI. At Kenyon College, the Integrated Program for Humane Studies (IPHS) launched a human-centered AI program in 2016 integrating artificial intelligence research with humanities and social science inquiry. This approach treats computation and humanistic scholarship as a single unified field of research rather than as separate disciplines requiring collaboration. The program's researchers have published in both AI venues (such as the International Conference on Machine Learning and Frontiers of Computer Science) and humanities journals (such as PMLA and Poetics Today), and the lab was selected in December 2025 by Schmidt Sciences for its Humanities and AI Virtual Institute to apply AI methods to cultural heritage preservation.
Dan Klein
Daniel Klein (born c. 1976) is an American computer scientist and professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on natural language processing and artificial intelligence. He was educated at Mt. Lebanon High School in Mt. Lebanon Township, Pennsylvania and earned a B.A. in mathematics, computer science, and linguistics from Cornell University (1998), a MSt in linguistics by Oxford University (1999) and a Ph.D. from Stanford University (2004), under Christopher D. Manning. He attended Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship. In addition to the Marshall scholarship, he has been awarded the ACM's Grace Murray Hopper Award, the Sloan Research Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, and the Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship.
Steve Omohundro
Stephen Malvern Omohundro (born 1959) is an American computer scientist whose areas of research include Hamiltonian physics, dynamical systems, programming languages, machine learning, machine vision, and the social implications of artificial intelligence. His current work uses rational economics to develop safe and beneficial intelligent technologies for better collaborative modeling, understanding, innovation, and decision making. == Education == Omohundro has degrees in physics and mathematics from Stanford University (Phi Beta Kappa) and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. == Learning algorithms == Omohundro started the "Vision and Learning Group" at the University of Illinois, which produced 4 Masters and 2 Ph.D. theses. His work in learning algorithms included a number of efficient geometric algorithms, the manifold learning task and various algorithms for accomplishing this task, other related visual learning and modelling tasks, the best-first model merging approach to machine learning (including the learning of Hidden Markov Models and Stochastic Context-free Grammars), and the Family Discovery Learning Algorithm, which discovers the dimension and structure of a parameterized family of stochastic models. == Self-improving artificial intelligence and AI safety == Omohundro started Self-Aware Systems in Palo Alto, California to research the technology and social implications of self-improving artificial intelligence. He is an advisor to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute on artificial intelligence. He argues that rational systems exhibit problematic natural "drives" that will need to be countered in order to build intelligent systems safely. His papers, talks, and videos on AI safety have generated extensive interest. He has given many talks on self-improving artificial intelligence, cooperative technology, AI safety, and connections with biological intelligence. == Programming languages == At Thinking Machines Corporation, Cliff Lasser and Steve Omohundro developed Star Lisp, the first programming language for the Connection Machine. Omohundro joined the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in Berkeley, California, where he led the development of the open source programming language Sather. Sather is featured in O'Reilly's History of Programming Languages poster. == Physics and dynamical systems theory == Omohundro's book Geometric Perturbation Theory in Physics describes natural Hamiltonian symplectic structures for a wide range of physical models that arise from perturbation theory analyses. He showed that there exist smooth partial differential equations which stably perform universal computation by simulating arbitrary cellular automata. The asymptotic behavior of these PDEs is therefore logically undecidable. With John David Crawford he showed that the orbits of three-dimensional period doubling systems can form an infinite number of topologically distinct torus knots and described the structure of their stable and unstable manifolds. == Mathematica and Apple tablet contest == From 1986 to 1988, he was an Assistant Professor of Computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and cofounded the Center for Complex Systems Research with Stephen Wolfram and Norman Packard. While at the University of Illinois, he worked with Stephen Wolfram and five others to create the symbolic mathematics program Mathematica. He and Wolfram led a team of students that won an Apple Computer contest to design "The Computer of the Year 2000." Their design entry "Tablet" was a touchscreen tablet with GPS and other features that finally appeared when the Apple iPad was introduced 22 years later. == Other contributions == Subutai Ahmad and Steve Omohundro developed biologically realistic neural models of selective attention. As a research scientist at the NEC Research Institute, Omohundro worked on machine learning and computer vision, and was a co-inventor of U.S. Patent 5,696,964, "Multimedia Database Retrieval System Which Maintains a Posterior Probability Distribution that Each Item in the Database is a Target of a Search." === Pirate puzzle === Omohundro developed an extension to the game theoretic pirate puzzle featured in Scientific American. == Outreach == Omohundro has sat on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute board of advisors. He has written extensively on artificial intelligence, and has warned that "an autonomous weapons arms race is already taking place" because "military and economic pressures are driving the rapid development of autonomous systems".
Linguistics Research Center at UT Austin
The Linguistics Research Center (LRC) at the University of Texas is a center for computational linguistics research & development. It was directed by Prof. Winfred Lehmann until his death in 2007, and subsequently by Dr. Jonathan Slocum. Since its founding, virtually all projects at the LRC have involved processing natural language texts with the aid of computers. The principal activities of the Center at present focus on Indo-European languages and comprise historical study, lexicography, and web-based teaching; staff members engage in several independent but often complementary projects in these fields using a variety of software, almost all of it developed in-house. == History == The LRC was founded by Winfred Lehmann in 1961. In the early days, research efforts at the LRC concentrated on machine translation (MT) -- the translation of texts from one human language to another with the aid of computers, very developed nowadays in the field of language industry—funded by the USAF and other sponsors. The LRC concentrated on German English translation, though a copy of the Russian Master Dictionary was deposited at the LRC after the ALPAC report. After a general hiatus ca. 1975-78, new funding led to the development by Jonathan Slocum and others of a new system with the same name (the METAL MT system), but with new sets of tools for linguists and vastly greater success, resulting in the delivery a production prototype then later a full-fledged commercial MT system. MT R&D continued at the LRC, with funding by various sponsors, until well into the 1990s. From its early years to the present, the LRC has mounted a number of smaller projects resulting in the publication of significant works relating to Indo-European languages and/or their common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. The hallmark of this work has been the use of computers to transcribe texts and prepare them for publication. A prominent example of the LRC using computers to prepare texts for print publication is the book by Winfred P. Lehmann, A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (Leiden: Brill, 1986). The final print-ready version was produced with the aid of a laser printer (exotic new technology, in those days) using, for the various languages included in the entries, approximately 500 special characters—many of them designed at the Center. This was the first major etymological dictionary for Indo-European languages to be produced with the aid of computers. Current LRC projects have concentrated on transcribing early Indo-European texts, developing language lessons based on them, and publishing on the web these and other materials related to the study of Indo-European languages, of their common ancestor Proto-Indo-European, and of historical linguistics more generally. == Alumni == Winfred Lehmann Rolf A. Stachowitz Jonathan Slocum Winfield S. Bennett John White
Masking (art)
In art, craft, and engineering, masking is the use of materials to protect areas from change, or to focus change on other areas. This can describe either the techniques and materials used to control the development of a work of art by protecting a desired area from change; or a phenomenon that (either intentionally or unintentionally) causes a sensation to be concealed from conscious attention. The term is derived from the word mask, in the sense that it hides the face from view. == In painting == Masking materials supplement a painter's dexterity and choice of applicator to control where paint is laid. Examples include the use of a stencil or masking tape to protect areas which are not to be painted. === Solid masks === Most solid masks require an adhesive to hold the mask in place while work is performed. Some, such as masking tape and frisket, come with adhesive pre-applied. Solid masks are readily available in bulk, and are used in large painting jobs. Paper products Kraft paper Butcher paper Masking tape Plastic film Frisket Polyester tape Stencils Silk screen === Liquid masks === Liquid masks are preferred where precision is needed; they prevent paint from seeping underneath, resulting in clean edges. Care must be taken to remove them without damaging the work underneath. Latex or other polymers Molten wax Gesso, typically a substrate for painting, but can also be applied to achieve masking effects == In photography == Masks used for photography are used to enhance the quality of an image. Representations of a scene—whether film, video display, or printed—do not have the dynamic contrast range available to the human eye looking directly at the same scene. Adjusting the contrast in an image helps restore some of the perceived qualities of the original scene. These adjustments are typically performed on "blown-out" highlights, and "crushed" or "muddy" shadow areas, where clipping has occurred; or on desaturated colors. Photographic masks are peculiar in that they are produced from the image they will alter, an exercise in recursion. Masks used to produce other effects are similar to those used in painting. === Controlling exposure === ==== Film ==== The basic methods of controlling exposure are dodging and burning, which respectively lighten (reduce exposure) and darken (increase exposure) areas of an image. The tools a film photographer uses range from shaped pieces of black material (such as studio foil, foam, and paper) to the photographer's hands. To create a photographic mask, a sheet of negative film is contact-exposed to the original film negative or slide positive in a particular way. Both films are then combined to produce a processed positive. The process is similar when applied using digital techniques: the inverse of the working image is reduced to an image mask; filters or other adjustments are then applied, using the mask to selectively block portions of the image. ==== Digital ==== Image editors offer at the very least a "Select All" command and a rectangular "marquee" selection tool. (The word "marquee" describes the "crawling ants" border used to highlight the active region.) Once a selection is created, further changes to the image will be confined to that area. To continue editing the rest of the image, the selection is either "deselected" or the entire image is selected. Advanced suites offer more ways to select portions of an image, as well as ways to combine these selections through. Selection masks can be switched between an editable greyscale image and a mask. They allow the user to create a mask using the suite's painting tools. === Contrast masking === When the contrast range of an image needs to be adjusted, a contrast mask is a simple solution. The processed image resembles what would be achieved when exposing through a neutral density filter, but the effects are focused highly upon the extreme regions of the image. The blocking areas of the mask coincide with the highlights of the image, and the permissive areas with the shadows, resulting in more detail appearing in each. ==== Film ==== The mask is often made from high-quality black-and-white film, such as Kodak Technical Pan, which allows for a degree of softening on the mask. Its processing time is reduced so as to not completely oppose the original negative. Both negatives are combined and registered, and collectively exposed with additional time to compensate for the presence of the mask. ==== Digital ==== Contrast masking is made simpler with digital editing. A grayscale version of the image is produced, either by desaturation or by calculating selected ratios of the image's color channels, inverted, and blurred. The mask and original image are blended together to produce the final processed image. Some image editors allow for refinement of the effect by changing the strength of the blend. Contrast masking can be considered to be the opposite of gamma correction, which adjusts the midtones of an image. Effects similar to contrast masking can be achieved by adjusting the response curves of an image. === Unsharp masking === A derivative of contrast masking is unsharp masking, an unusual term for a process intended to increase the apparent sharpness (acutance) of an image. Unsharp masking uses a blurred form of the image to increase contrast along regions of moderate contrast difference. Around edges, the blur region causes highlights to overexpose and shadows to underexpose. Taken to an extreme, the edges become overly visible and detract from the quality of the image—this is referred to as halation. Unsharp masking does not increase the actual sharpness, as it cannot recover details lost to blurring. ==== Film ==== Unsharp masking allows the photographer to sharpen areas that have become blurred in the original negative, due to long shutter speed/exposure time, or from using a wide aperture/"fast" lens. When creating the unsharp mask, extra space or diffusing material is added between the image and the mask to produce the necessary blur. ==== Digital ==== Unsharp masking has become automated in digital editing, with higher-end suites offering the process as a "tool" or "filter" in their standard sharpening kits—the actual creation of a mask is bypassed in favor of calculations that represent the mask's effect. The process depends on three factors: the radius of the blur, the strength of the effect, and the threshold degree of contrast above which the effect will be applied. (Adjusting the threshold allows the editor to apply the effect selectively upon moderately defined edges and ignore image noise.) Unsharp masking is computationally more complex than other sharpening algorithms, but results in a higher-quality remedy. Deconvolution allows for truer sharpening, but is much more complex than unsharp masking.
How to Choose an AI Blog Writer
Curious about the best AI blog writer? An AI blog writer is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it combines speed, accuracy, and an interface that just works. Hands-on testing shows real-world results vary, so a short free trial is the smartest way to decide. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI blog writer slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. This guide breaks down the top picks, their pros and cons, and who each one is best for.