The Case for a Small Language Model

Richard Vijgen

Artwork description:

When a language model produces a sentence it presents us a statistical probability based on countless texts it has analysed. Before it is able to predict the next character in a sentence it cuts the writings of millions of authors into fragments to analyse the sequence of characters. These texts are stripped of meaning and structure and repurposed as a statistical resource. But what would happen when a language model creates new texts while leaving the original works intact?

The Case For a Small Language Network is a speculative AI based on the work of Dutch composer and poet Rozalie Hirs. Her 2021 poetry book Oneindige Zin (which can be read as Infinite Sense or Infinite Phrase in Dutch) can be read as one never ending phrase. The installation shows the entire book printed on five 30 meter long strips of labelprinter paper that scroll in both directions.

As the five lines move back and forth, a vertical reading allows for new combinations to emerge. Meanwhile a neural network analyses a digital copy of Hirs’ original text and tries to create new sentences based on her work. Initially the combinations seem random and nonsensical but over time more interesting combinations emerge. Rather than appropriating the the authors work as mere statistical data, the system leaves the original text intact. It's output can only be read and understood in the context of the input, as the only way to display it is to move the entire manuscript text left or right.