[Colloquium] MONDAY 2/17 Xiang (Lisa) Li (Stanford) Controlling Language Models

[Holly Santos via Colloquium]

Department of Computer Science and Data Science Institute Presents

Xiang (Lisa) Li 
PhD Candidate
Stanford University

Monday, February 17th 
3:00pm - 4:00pm 
In-Person: John Crerar Library Rm 390

https://uchicagogroup.zoom.us/j/98867051614?pwd=J8zSyW6PeKKlPzFzSLsguliBa5fx3j.1 <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://uchicagogroup.zoom.us/j/98867051614?pwd%3DJ8zSyW6PeKKlPzFzSLsguliBa5fx3j.1&sa=D&source=calendar&ust=1739913128207752&usg=AOvVaw1xvJWbL9DUHJqOLgkT-t2x>

Meeting ID: 988 6705 1614
Passcode: 106946

Title: Controlling Language Models 

Abstract:  Controlling language models is key to unlocking their full potential and making them useful for downstream tasks. Successfully deploying these models often requires both task-specific customization and rigorous auditing of their behavior. In this talk, I will begin by introducing a customization method called Prefix-Tuning, which adapts language models by updating only 0.1% of their parameters. Next, I will address the need for robust auditing by presenting a Frank-Wolfe-inspired algorithm for red-teaming language models, which provides a principled framework for discovering diverse failure modes. Finally, I will rethink the root cause of these control challenges, and propose a new generative model for text, called Diffusion-LM, which is controllable by design. 

Bio: Xiang Lisa Li is a PhD candidate at Stanford University, where she is advised by Percy Liang and Tatsunori Hashimoto. Her research focuses on developing methods to make language models more capable and controllable. Lisa is supported by the Two Sigma PhD fellowship and Stanford Graduate Fellowship and is the recipient of an EMNLP Best Paper award.




Host: Haifeng Xu

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Holly Santos
Executive Assistant to Hank Hoffmann, Liew Family Chair
Department of Computer Science
The University of Chicago
5730 S Ellis Ave-217   Chicago, IL 60637
P: 773-834-8977
hsantos at uchicago.edu






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