language model

noun

plural language models

: a mathematical model (see model entry 1 sense 3) that analyzes a corpus of text in order to accurately represent the relationships between words

We have tremendous freedom to put words in any order we like. The computer has to have some kind of handle, a language model. It has to figure how likely any particular word is to pop up at any time.

—Robert Mercer, quoted in Chicago Tribune

also : software that uses a language model to generate text (such as responses to queries or prompts)

For example, given the task of analyzing the sentiment of the sentence 'I missed the bus today,' researchers could continue with the prompt 'I felt so [blank]' and ask a language model to fill in the blank with an emotion.

—Kyle Wiggers

see also large language model

Examples of language model in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The development of small language models for mobile and wearable devices is advancing rapidly. —Wei Duan, Forbes, 23 Jan. 2025

View 3 Images View gallery - 3 images The AI behavior models controlling how robots interact with the physical world haven't been advancing at the crazy pace that GPT-style language models have – but new multiverse 'world simulators' from Nvidia and Google could change that rapidly. —New Atlas, 7 Jan. 2025

In late December, the small Chinese lab, based in Hangzhou, released V3, a language model with 671 billion parameters, which was reportedly trained in two months for just $5.58 million. —Rashi Shrivastava, Forbes, 28 Jan. 2025

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: Nvidia — The chipmaker tumbled nearly 17% as the performance of a language model from Chinese startup DeepSeek raised questions about the amount of investment in artificial intelligence. —Alex Harring, CNBC, 27 Jan. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1976, in the meaning defined above