Since 2011, Switzerland has been home to Scientifica, the country’s largest science festival, co-hosted by ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. Held every two years with a unique theme for each edition, Scientifica has consistently drawn over 20,000 visitors. This event provides an exceptional platform for researchers to engage the public through a wide array of activities, including exhibitions and workshops.

Highlights from Scientifica23

In the most recent Scientifica event, Scientifica23, the NoCE lab was one of the booths representing the NCCR Evolving Language project. We showcased two interactive activities:

1- Building Word Networks across Languages

Participants were invited to contribute to a growing word network by adding new words or creating links between existing words within two languages, German and English. Using post-it notes, markers, and thread, this dynamic activity started with a single word (“Mouth” in English and “Mund” in German) and grew into a piece of “word-web art” through the creative input of attendees and inspiration from the Small World of Words project.

Scientifica attendees of every age took part in this task, adding new words linked with the initial word “Mouth”/”Mund'' and finding new and creative connections between existing words that others hadn’t yet considered. For interested participants, the online Small World of Words network was explored and compared to our Scientifica word networks; participants were encouraged to become citizen scientists by participating in this 5-minute online word game in their native language.

Kids and kids at heart enjoyed participating in this creative and non-digital activity! Its simple structure allowed people to engage with the activity at any level. Quite a few participants were interested in the activity’s utility in studying the brain, multilingualism, language disorders and dementia, as well as in the comparison between humans and computers. The activity also emphasized the need for cross-linguistic data so we can fully appreciate how languages help our brains connect concepts to one another.

2- Word Analogy Challenge

We introduced visitors to the concept of word analogies, akin to riddles. We used the word2vec model with GloVe embeddings to demonstrate semantic spaces, how word models function, and how word embeddings are generated. Attendees were encouraged to suggest analogies like “man : woman :: king : queen.” We compared results from our model (akin to a 4-year-old) with ChatGPT (a 12-year-old) for an engaging comparison.

Word Analogies Explored

Here’s a list of word analogies explored by different participants during the event. For explanations, you can refer to this document on LLMs and word analogies:

man - woman + king = Queen
lizard - legs + sting = Wound
star - mud + hangover = Quicksand
Cat - Dog + Food = Coffee
Cat - Dog + Kitten = Puppy
Pen - Ink + Wood = Plywood
Pen - Ink + pensil = Inks
Pen - Ink + pencil = Pencils
Pen - Pencil + Ink = Pencils
Paris - France + Berlin = Germany
geneva - water + bred = Abundant
geneva - water + bread = Mixture
mother - father + daughter = Son
word - phrase + chapter = Chapters
cat - dog + kitten = Puppy
horse - cow + ponny = Clarabelle
fish - metal + oil = Cement
animal - wings + africa = Unbeaten
animal - wing + africa = Alliance
good - better + bad = Worse
body - mind + human = Understand
mind - human + body = Bodies
mind - theory + human = Evolution
mind - theory + mentalising = Computability
tree - apple + house = Company
tree - cherry + house = Starr
tree - fruit + house = Prepared
cat - mouse + predator = Mq-1
fast - faster + bright = Brighter
philosophy - humanities + stem = Embryonic
philosophy - humanities + = Kahnuj
philosophy - humanities + computers = Laptops
knife - serial murderer + racism = Homophobia
colour - rainbow + note = Call
colour - rainbow + music = Concert
human - artificial intelligence + animal = Flea
bacteria - microbiome + virus = Hapmap
bacteria - microbiome + human = Recognises

Addressing Concerns and Questions

We also had engaging discussions with attendees who expressed concerns about ChatGPT and the rapid advancement of language models. Some were curious about the limitations of these large language models. We valued these conversations and provided insights to address their queries.

A Memorable Weekend in Zurich

We had an enriching and wonderful weekend in Zurich, thanks to the enthusiastic participation of everyone who visited our booth, the Scientifica organisers and NCCR Evolving Language (See their post on the event here). This activity required us to be able to explain our research to everyone -from the professor curious to hear about our research to the 5-year old child. We were also encouraged to switch between languages, as participants could be German-, French- or English-speaking; this also trained our own language network 😉
Scientifica continues to be a vital platform for fostering dialogue between researchers and the public. See you next year at La Nuit de la Science in Geneva! 😄