: IMR Academy presents: It is more than ChatBots: Natural language processing in the service of social sciences, with Michal Mochtak

The IMR Academy and the IMR research Hot Spot Sustainable Democracy are jointly organizing a seminar on computer-assisted text analysis in service of the social sciences.

In this seminar, Michal Mochtak will introduce the methods and discuss the great opportunities and major challenges that come with automated text analysis. What is out there when it comes to the computer-assisted analysis of textual data? How to use it for the greater good? How can social sciences benefit from the recent advancements in natural language processing? The lecture is intended as an intro to computational text analysis focused on the big picture of distant reading and machine understanding of text. The lecture will briefly sketch the history of natural language processing, discuss paradigms and approaches for processing small and big datasets (e.g. lexicometrics, rule-based systems, vector representation of text, embeddings, language modeling), and outline opportunities for new applications in social science research. The lecture will also provide the participants with several tips and tricks regarding programming, data collection, and data modeling (lessons learned).

Michal Mochtak is a Radboud Excellence Fellow working on a project on the spread of authoritarianism. His research interests cover hybrid regimes, electoral violence, and conflicts, and he is especially experienced in natural language processing and its applications in social sciences.

Drinks will be served afterwards