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Oskar van der Wal

@ovdw.bsky.social

1.3K followers 380 following 54 posts

Technology specialist at the EU AI Office / AI Safety / Prev: University of Amsterdam, EleutherAI, BigScience Thoughts & opinions are my own and do not necessarily represent my employer.

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Reposted by Oskar van der Wal

Pietro Lesci @pietrolesci.bsky.social · Apr 22

✈️ Headed to @iclr-conf.bsky.social — whether you’ll be there in person or tuning in remotely, I’d love to connect!

We’ll be presenting our paper on pre-training stability in language models and the PolyPythias 🧵

🔗 ArXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2503.09543
🤗 PolyPythias: huggingface.co/collections/...

Reposted by Oskar van der Wal

AmsterdamNLP @amsterdamnlp.bsky.social · Nov 10

Work in progress -- suggestions for NLP-ers based in the EU/Europe & already on Bluesky very welcome!

go.bsky.app/NZDc31B

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 19

I would like to be added! 😄

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 18

Hi, I'd like to be part of this!

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 16

👋

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

💬Panel discussion with Sally Haslanger and Marjolein Lanzing: A philosophical perspective on algorithmic discrimination

Is discrimination the right way to frame the issues of lang tech? Or should we answer deeper rooted questions? And how does tech fit in systems of oppression?

A photo of the panel discussion.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

📄Undesirable Biases in NLP: Addressing Challenges of Measurement

We also presented our own work on strategies for testing the validity and reliability of LM bias measures:

www.jair.org/index.php/ja...

Screenshot of a slide discussing how to improve how we communicate bias scores on Model Cards.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

🔑Keynote @zeerak.bsky.social: On the promise of equitable machine learning technologies

Can we create equitable ML technologies? Can statistical models faithfully express human language? Or are tokenizers "tokenizing" people—creating a Frankenstein monster of lived experiences?

Photo of the presentation. The slide shows an image of Frankenstein's monster.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

📄A Capabilities Approach to Studying Bias and Harm in Language Technologies

@hellinanigatu.bsky.social introduced us to the Capabilities Approach and how it can help us better understand the social impact of language technologies—with case studies of failing tech in the Majority World.

Photo of the presentation.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

📄Angry Men, Sad Women: Large Language Models Reflect Gendered Stereotypes in Emotion Attribution

Flor Plaza discussed the importance of studying gendered emotional stereotypes in LLMs, and how collaborating with philosophers benefits work on bias evaluation greatly.

Photo of the presentation.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

🔑Keynote by John Lalor: Should Fairness be a Metric or a Model?

While fairness is often viewed as a metric, using integrated models instead can help with explaining upstream bias, predicting downstream fairness, and capturing intersectional bias.

Photo of the presentation.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

📄A Decade of Gender Bias in Machine Translation

Eva Vanmassenhove: how has research on gender bias in MT developed over the years? Important issues, like non-binary gender bias, now fortunately get more attention. Yet, fundamental problems (that initially seemed trivial) remain unsolved.

Photo of the presentation.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

📄MBBQ: A Dataset for Cross-Lingual Comparison of Stereotypes in Generative LLMs

Vera Neplenbroek presented a multilingual extension of the BBQ bias benchmark to study bias across English, Dutch, Spanish, and Turkish.

"Multilingual LLMs are not necessarily multicultural!"

Photo of the presentation.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

🔑Keynote by Dong Nguyen: When LLMs meet language variation: Taking stock and looking forward

Non-standard language is often seen as noisy/incorrect data, but this ignores the reality of language. Variation should play a larger role in LLM developments and sociolinguistics can help!

Photo of the presentation.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Nov 15

Last week, we organized the workshop "New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology" 🤖 @uvahumanities.bsky.social @amsterdamnlp.bsky.social

We're looking back at two inspiring days of talks, posters, and discussions—thanks to everyone who participated!

wai-amsterdam.github.io

Photo of the poster session at the workshop.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Sep 8

This is a friendly reminder that there are 7 days left for submitting your extended abstract to this workshop!

(Since the workshop is non-archival, previously published work is welcome too. So consider submitting previous/future work to join the discussion in Amsterdam!)

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Aug 7

Working on #bias & #discrimination in #NLP? Passionate about integrating insights from different disciplines? And do you want to discuss current limitations of #LLM bias mitigation work? 🤖
👋Join the workshop New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology 4&5 Nov in #Amsterdam!

Workshop: New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology.

Workshop: New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology.

wai-amsterdam.github.io

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Aug 7

This workshop is organized by University of Amsterdam researchers Katrin Schulz, Leendert van Maanen, @wzuidema.bsky.social, Dominik Bachmann, and myself.
More information on the workshop can be found on the website, which will be updated regularly.
wai-amsterdam.github.io

Workshop: New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology.

Workshop: New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology.

wai-amsterdam.github.io

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Aug 7

🌟The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers from different fields to discuss the state of the art on bias measurement and mitigation in language technology and to explore new avenues of approach.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Aug 7

One of the central issues discussed in the context of the societal impact of language technology is that ML systems can contribute to discrimination. Despite efforts to address these issues, we are far from solving them.

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Aug 7

We're super excited to host Dong Nguyen, John Lalor, @zeerak.bsky.social and @azjacobs.bsky.social as invited speakers at this workshop! Submit an extended abstract to join the discussions; either in a 20min talk or a poster session.
📝Deadline Call for Abstracts: 15 Sep, 2024

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Aug 7

Working on #bias & #discrimination in #NLP? Passionate about integrating insights from different disciplines? And do you want to discuss current limitations of #LLM bias mitigation work? 🤖
👋Join the workshop New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology 4&5 Nov in #Amsterdam!

Workshop: New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology.

Workshop: New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology.

wai-amsterdam.github.io

Reposted by Oskar van der Wal

Luca Soldaini 🎀 @soldaini.net · Feb 1

release day release day 🥳 OLMo 1b +7b out today and 65b soon...

OLMo accelerates the study of LMs. We release *everything*, from toolkit for creating data (Dolma) to train/inf code

blog blog.allenai.org/olmo-open-la...
olmo paper allenai.org/olmo/olmo-pa...
dolma paper allenai.org/olmo/dolma-p...

OLMo: Open Language Model

A State-Of-The-Art, Truly Open LLM and Framework

blog.allenai.org

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Feb 1

But exciting to see more work dedicated to sharing models, checkpoints, and training data to the (research) community!

Oskar van der Wal @ovdw.bsky.social · Feb 1

Don't forget EleutherAI's Pythia, which came out last year! dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/...

Pythia | Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning

Reposted by Oskar van der Wal

Naomi Saphra @nsaphra.bsky.social · Jan 31

@michahu.bsky.social did an interview laying out our recent paper containing the figures I insist on calling "the mona lisa of training visualizations"

Uncovering the Phases of Neural Network Training: Insights from CDS’ Michael Hu

The idea that neural networks undergo distinct developmental phases during training has long been a subject of debate and fascination. CDS…

nyudatascience.medium.com