cat

What do you find interesting about it?

I just think languages are neat, and applying my computer background to it seems like a nice way to sneak into the field. also there winds up being a lot of intersections between people using natural language and people operating computers

right now my research is kinda revolving around sociolinguistics and the ethical consequences of humanizing artificial interlocutors, and assessing how we communicate and perceive things differently when communicating through maybe-humanized computer interfaces vs with other humans

part of that is spite-driven, in that some of the initial motivation behind this was the hellscape of LLM hype and generative language models, and their terrible misapplication by making them an interface for information retrieval and the incredible amount of damage they can cause while being shoehorned into that niche

What motivated you to pursue it as a field?

Aside from "I think it's neat", doing stuff in my career of software stuff (and getting medicated for adhd among other things), I realized:

• I like studying and learning new things
• I'm actually kind of good at researching stuff and writing papers
• I'm real tired of existing as a cog in the corporate software development lifecycle
• I saved up enough money that I can go to grad school without it being a big deal
• My really kind partner agreed to let me on their insurance while I do school stuff now that I'm funemployed

Is there anything in particular you want to do with your degree?

I have about a year of my master's program left, and next year I was thinking I'd start applying to do my PhD

after that, I think I might like to do HCI / linguistic research, either in academia, or if I can find an R&D job at a company that isn't horrible

If I completely fail at achieving the MS or PhD or otherwise can't find any work after I'm done with those, then I'll probably start programming to pay my bills until I can find something else