Allison is a computer programmer, poet, educator and game designer whose teaching and practice address the unusual phenomena that blossom when language and computers meet. She is an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, where she earned her master's degree in 2008.
“A language model is a machine learning model that predicts the next word in a text. Industrial language models like GPT-3 power everything from search engines to iPhone keyboards. However, such models typically cost thousands of dollars to train, emitting untold amounts of CO2 in the process; their use in the arts is ethically questionable. I propose instead a radically small language model, trained on a low-power microcontroller, only when drawing sufficient energy from solar panels. I’ll use this model to produce computer-generated albas, a poetry genre in which lovers lament the oncoming dawn.”