Top AI Conference bans ChatGPT in article submissions (and why it matters)

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A machine learning conference to discuss the use of machine learning? While that might sound so meta, in its call for paper submissions on Monday, the International Conference on Machine Learning did indeed note that "papers that include text generated from Large Scale Language Model (LLM) such as ChatGPT are prohibited unless the text produced is presented as part of the experimental analysis of the paper."

It didn't take long for a heated social media debate to brew, in what could be a perfect example of what businesses, organizations and institutions of all shapes and sizes, in all verticals, will face in the future: How will humans cope with the rise of large language models that can help communicate (or borrow, expand or plagiarize, depending on your perspective) ideas?

Arguments for and against using ChatGPT

As a debate on Twitter has intensified over the past two days, a variety of arguments for and against the use of LLMs have emerged in ML article submissions.

"So small and medium scale language models are fine, right?" tweeted Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta, adding, "I'm just asking the question because, you know… spellcheckers and predictive keyboards are language models."

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And Sebastian Bubeck, who leads the ML Foundations team at Microsoft Research, called the rule "myopic", tweeting that "ChatGPT and its variants are part of the future. Banning is definitely not the solution."

Ethan Perez, researcher at Anthropic AI, tweeted that "This rule has a disproportionate impact on my collaborators who are not native English speakers."

Silvia Sellan, a PhD candidate in Computer Graphics and Geometry Processing at the University of Toronto, agreed, tweeting, "I'm trying to give the conference chairs the benefit of the doubt, but I really don't understand this blanket prohibition. As I understand it, LLMs, like Photoshop or the GitHub co-pilot, are a tool that can have both legitimate (e.g. I use it as a non-native English speaker) and nefarious uses… "

The ICML conference meets the LLM ethics rule

Finally, yesterday the ICML clarified its LLM Ethics Policy:

"We (programme managers) have included the following statement in the call for contributions for ICML represented by 2023:

"Articles that include text generated from a Large Scale Language Model (LLM) such as ChatGPT are prohibited unless the text produced is presented as part of the experimental analysis of the article.

"This statement has raised a number of questions from potential authors and has led some to proactively contact us. We appreciate your feedback and comments...