Language & Machines Reading Group

Fall 2025

About

This reading group follows current topics in natural language processing, machine learning, language modeling research --- focusing on language and machines. We plan to cover topics in alignment, training, interpretability, evaluation, and safety.

In each session, one participant leads the rest in reading and discussing a paper of interest. Discussions are informal, friendly, and focused on helping participants understand the implications, strengths, and weaknesses of each paper.

Logistics

When (updated!): Fridays, 11:00AM-12:00PM 60 mins

Where (updated!): CSB 488 (no virtual option.) (September 12 only, we are in CSB 480 instead)

Kickoff (updated!): September 5, 2025

Join the mailing list to get future updates:

  1. Sign in to your Columbia account and open the link:
    Columbia Grouper Join Page
  2. Search for language-machines-reading
  3. Click “Join Group”

Organizers

John Hewitt <jh5020@columbia.edu>

How to Join

This reading group is only open to Columbia students. For now, I'm hoping to leave it open to all interested Columbia students. However, if we become space-constrained, I may have to change this.