On Wednesday, 4 March, Samia Touileb, Associate Professor at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, will join Academic Morning Coffee to talk about: Why should we consider ethical and societal aspects in the development of language models?

Date: 4 March
Venue: SV-cafeteria (Lauritz Meltzers hus, 4th floor), Fosswinckels gate 6, 5007 Bergen

Time: 9:15-10:00 (coffee and tea served from 9:00)

Abstract:

As language models become increasingly integrated into everyday life, the need to understand and mitigate their ethical risks grows. These technologies influence various aspects of our lives, making it important to ask questions such as: How can we measure and reduce the social and cultural biases embedded in language models? What methods exist for evaluating the safety of these systems and preventing potential harm? Is it possible to adapt language models to our ethical, cultural, and societal values while ensuring transparency and accountability? And are we capable of developing robust evaluation mechanisms?

Samia Touileb is an Associate Professor in language technology (Natural Language Processing) with research interests in bias and fairness in models, information extraction, automatic summarisation, and applications of language technology and machine learning in social science research. She received the Faculty’s Award for Dissemination in 2025 and, in the same year, became a member of the Young Academy of Norway (AYF). In this conversation, Touileb will discuss some of the most pressing concerns related to the rapid development of large language models, both globally and in the Norwegian context.

The conversation will be in Norwegian.