A Primer on Large Language Models and their Limitations

TL;DR

This paper offers a comprehensive overview of Large Language Models, detailing their capabilities, limitations, and applications, aiming to inform both academic and industry audiences for practical and advanced use cases.

Contribution

It provides a foundational primer on LLMs, highlighting key concepts, strengths, limitations, and future research directions for diverse users.

Findings

Identifies core strengths and limitations of LLMs

Outlines practical applications in various fields

Suggests future research directions

Abstract

This paper provides a primer on Large Language Models (LLMs) and identifies their strengths, limitations, applications and research directions. It is intended to be useful to those in academia and industry who are interested in gaining an understanding of the key LLM concepts and technologies, and in utilising this knowledge in both day to day tasks and in more complex scenarios where this technology can enhance current practices and processes.