The Impact of AI Generative Text on the Future of NLP: The Rise of Synthetic Data and its Implications

Mauricio Arancibia
5 min readJan 12, 2023

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An robot writing an article and drinking a cup of coffee. Midjourney
Robot write an article and drinking a cup of coffee. Generated by Midjourney

Natural language processing (NLP) is a rapidly evolving field that relies heavily on large amounts of data to train deep learning models. With the advent of AI generative text, it is now possible to generate vast amounts of synthetic data for NLP tasks, such as language translation, text summarization and lately generating articles. However, as synthetic data becomes more prevalent in NLP, there are concerns about the potential risks and limitations of relying too heavily on it for training the deep learning models.

One of the main advantages of generative text is that it allows for the creation of large amounts of synthetic data without the need for human annotation. This can be especially useful for data-intensive tasks such as language translation and text-to-speech, where the availability of labeled data is often a bottleneck. However, synthetic data is often generated under controlled conditions and may not fully capture the complexity and diversity of real-world data.

Up to date this big NLP models are primarily trained on real human data, there is a risk that they may become overly reliant on it and lack robustness and generalization when faced with this huge synthetic data. Furthermore, there is a risk that the synthetic data generated contains fake information, which can lead to inaccurate models. As AI generative text technology becomes more sophisticated, it becomes increasingly difficult to detect fake information generated by these models, which can lead to even more inaccuracies for the future training process in the NLP deep learning models.

Additionally, the use of AI generative text to create synthetic data raises important ethical and societal issues. Generated synthetic data can perpetuate existing biases and in some applications, it can be used to automate disinformation or spamming.

Easy Content Creation with AI Text Generation: A Double-edged Sword

Robot writing a text drinking coffee. Midjourney

The rapid advancement of AI generative text technology like ChatGPT has made it easier than ever to create large amounts of content quickly and efficiently. With the ability to generate text that mimics human writing, AI generative text has the potential to revolutionize the way we create content, from blog posts and news articles to social media posts and even books. However, this technology also poses significant risks, particularly in terms of the creation and dissemination of misinformation.

One of the main advantages of AI generative text is its ability to create large amounts of content in a short amount of time. This can be especially useful for businesses and organizations that need to produce a lot of content on a regular basis. For example, a news organization could use AI generative text to quickly write news articles or summaries, or a social media platform could use it to generate captions for user-generated images.

However, the ease with which AI generative text can create content also poses significant risks, particularly in terms of the creation and dissemination of misinformation. As AI generative text becomes more sophisticated, it becomes increasingly difficult to detect fake information generated by these models. This can lead to the spread of false information, particularly in the context of news and social media, where the speed and scale at which information can be shared can exacerbate the problem.

As synthetic data becomes more prevalent in NLP, it may soon overcome real human data in terms of the volume and diversity of data available for training and testing NLP models.

The Dominance and future of Synthetic Data in NLP: How AI Generated Text Models will Change the Landscape

The Necessity of Identifying AI Generated Text vs Real Human Text

Robot talking to another robot while working in the park at night. Midjourney

The ability to distinguish between AI generated text and real human text is crucial for ensuring the accuracy and fairness of NLP models. Models trained on synthetic data may not perform as well when faced with real-world data, and may perpetuate existing biases if the synthetic data used to train them is not diverse enough. Additionally, fake information generated by AI generative text technology can be difficult to detect, and if incorporated into NLP models can lead to inaccuracies.

There is an urgent need to develop techniques for identifying and labeling AI generated text. This can include developing algorithms to detect patterns in the language that are characteristic of AI generated text.

It is important to create tools and techniques to detect AI generated text against real human text for the future of training big NLP models because these models rely heavily on large amounts of data to train. If the data used to train these models is mostly synthetic, generated by AI, it can result in models that lack robustness and generalization when faced with real-world data.

By creating tools and techniques to detect AI generated text, we can better control how it is used to train NLP models and ensure that the models are robust, generalizable, accurate and fair.

Conclusions

While AI generative text has the potential to revolutionize the field of NLP by providing an abundance of synthetic data, it is important to consider the potential drawbacks and limitations of this technology. The overreliance on synthetic data, particularly in absence of human supervision, can lead to inaccuracies in the models and perpetuate biases. It is crucial to continue to use real-world data in addition to synthetic data, and to carefully evaluate the impact of synthetic data on the accuracy and fairness of models.

As the NLP field evolve and more complex models are developed, it is important to keep in mind that the future of NLP depends on the quality of data used to train these models. Researchers and practitioners need to be aware of the limitations and ethical considerations of synthetic data, and develop best practices for working with it in order to continue making progress in the field of NLP with the help of deep learning. Regularly monitoring, testing and updating the models with human data is essential to ensure a fair and accurate performance.

Also the development of tools and techniques for accurately identifying and distinguishing AI generated text from real human text is crucial for ensuring the accuracy and fairness of the future of NLP models.

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Mauricio Arancibia

AI Engineer, Drummer, Lover of Science Fiction Reading. 🧠+🤖 Visit me at http://www.neuraldojo.org