Computational natural language learning: ±20years ±data ±features ±multimodal ±bioplausible

Abstract

This speech celebrates the 20th anniversary of the CoNLL conference and looks back 20 years before CoNLL and 20 years into the future in an attempt to paint a longterm roadmap of Computational Natural Language Learning. The founders of CoNLL agonized hard and long over what to call our nascent field, and how to ensure that we kept all the interdisciplinary diversity that we had in those early days, including preserving the richness of views in a field that encompassed many controversies. We will explore this diversity with a focus on new directions that are developing; we will reflect on the changing nature of our technology including the deceleration of Moore’s Law and the emergence of Big Data; and we will consider the impact of and on ubiquitous technologies ranging from wearables to multimedia, from intelligent phones to driverless cars.