The Rise of Natural Language Processing: ever-increasing Applications and New Challenges

11.11.2021 12:15 – 14:00

In one decade, Natural Language Processing (NLP) has grown from a niche field to a leading discipline. Its applications have multiplied in many disciplines, while its scientific community has grown accordingly. At the crossroads of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence, this science and technology is indeed extremely promising, due to its ability to accurately extract information and insights contained in language data (documents, audio files) as well as categorize and organize these language files. By continuously refining the ways to process and analyze large amounts of natural language data, NLP specialists aims to make computers capable of "understanding" the contents of documents, including the contextual nuances of the language within them. As such, this technology raises ethical issues, which are become more important as its use is now rising to an unprecedented level.

Through concrete examples drawn from their research, the speakers at this seminar will present how they use NLP in their field to open up new avenues for research, but also what are the challenges they have encountered in using it. These presentations will notably highlight how the use of NLP can contribute to offer a better understanding of the Switzerland Philanthropic Organizations, paving the way to the establishment of synergies between diverse actors sharing the goal of achieving the SDGs and ultimately to boost the role of philanthropy. They will also underline how important and fruitful is the collaboration between philologists and computer scientists, specialised in NLP, to achieve valuable discoveries for the history of French. Finally, they will also address the ethical dimensions of NLP, exploring the issue of bias, but also, on a cognitive level, the fascinating similarities between humans and neural networks when it comes to their knowledge of the meaning of words. 

Lieu

Bâtiment: Sciences III

Room 1S059
And Online - Zoom (registration is needed for obtaining the link)

entrée libre