Towards Interactive Language Modeling

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of interactive language modeling inspired by human language acquisition, outlining a roadmap and demonstrating initial feasibility to enhance versatility and downstream applications.

Contribution

It pioneers the research area of interactive language modeling, providing a roadmap and initial experimental evidence for its feasibility.

Findings

Initial feasibility demonstrated through experiments

Roadmap for future research in interactive language modeling

Potential for improved versatility and downstream application impact

Abstract

Interaction between caregivers and children plays a critical role in human language acquisition and development. Given this observation, it is remarkable that explicit interaction plays little to no role in artificial language modeling -- which also targets the acquisition of human language, yet by artificial models. Moreover, an interactive approach to language modeling has the potential to make language models substantially more versatile and to considerably impact downstream applications. Motivated by these considerations, we pioneer the space of interactive language modeling. As a first contribution we present a road map in which we detail the steps that need to be taken towards interactive language modeling. We then lead by example and take the first steps on this road map, showing the initial feasibility of our approach. As such, this work aims to be the start of a larger research agenda on interactive language modeling.