LLM 101: Opportunities and Challenges
February 5, 2025, 2 - 3 PM
Online via Microsoft Teams
Presented by David Gunkel, Ph.D., Department of Communication
Online Registration is Closed
Large Language Models (LLM) are a recent innovation in natural language processing (NLP) technology that employ transformer architectures pre-trained on massive amounts of digital text scraped from the Internet. As a result, applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini can now generate original content that is, in many cases, indistinguishable from human written material.
In this presentation, Professor David J. Gunkel will
- demystify the technology of LLMs by providing an accessible explanation of the inner workings of these algorithms,
- evaluate the costs and benefits of machine generated content in different areas of human communication, and
- explore the impact these technologies are likely to have on writing and its future.
In effect, the presentation asks and seeks to respond to these questions: Does an LLM application like ChatGPT write? Do these algorithms know or understand what they are saying? And if so (or if not), how will this affect and/or alter our understanding of human communication and writing?
David J. Gunkel is an award-winning educator, researcher, and author, specializing in the philosophy of technology with a focus on the moral and legal challenges of artificial intelligence and robots. He is the author of over 110 scholarly articles and has published eighteen books, including Thinking Otherwise: Philosophy, Communication, Technology (Purdue University Press 2007), The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots, and Ethics (MIT Press 2012), Of Remixology: Ethics and Aesthetics After Remix (MIT Press 2016), Robot Rights (MIT Press 2018), Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond (MIT Press 2023), and Handbook on the Ethics of AI (Edward Elgar 2024).
He is a Distinguished Teaching Professor and Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor, currently serving as Chair of the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University.
Registration Information
This workshop is open to NIU faculty, instructors, SPS and Civil Service staff, and Graduate Teaching Assistants.