New free ebook explains foundations of large language models

A new comprehensive book titled “Foundations of Large Language Models” has been released for free access on arxiv.org, offering readers a structured introduction to LLM technology. The book covers essential concepts and techniques across four chapters, focusing on the fundamental aspects rather than cutting-edge developments.

The authors present the material as learning notes, making complex topics accessible to readers with varying levels of technical expertise. While some background in machine learning and natural language processing is helpful, the self-contained chapters ensure accessibility for all readers.

The book’s structure progresses from basic pre-training concepts to advanced topics. Chapter 1 explores pre-training fundamentals and model architectures, while Chapter 2 delves into generative models and their scaling. Chapter 3 covers prompting methods, including chain-of-thought reasoning and automatic prompt design. The final chapter discusses alignment methods, focusing on instruction fine-tuning and human feedback integration.

The preface of the book emphasizes how LLMs have revolutionized artificial intelligence by demonstrating that world knowledge can be acquired through large-scale language modeling tasks. This insight has led to a shift from specialized systems to foundation models that can be fine-tuned for various applications.

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