[DRAFT] Large Language Models: An Illustrated Guide

Hello!

This is a Quarto book.

To learn more about Quarto books visit https://quarto.org/docs/books.

Is there a PDF version of the book?

Yes. Every new release triggers a new PDF version. (coming soon)

What this book IS

• A book focused on examples and figures to explain how Language Modeling started and how we got to where we are today.

• A technical book aimed at people with some mathematical and programming knowledge.

What this book is NOT

• A low-level book, explaining at the code level how to build an LLM. Read Build a Large Language Model From Scratch by Sebastian Raschka instead;

• A book with extensive mathematical proofs of the statistical and algebraic components of LLMs (not sure there is any good source here other than the original papers themselves);

• A book on tools and frameworks to work with LLMs (Pytorch, Tensorflow, Huggingface, etc).

• A general book about NLP. Read Speech and Language Processing by Dan Jurafsky and James H. Martin.

• A book on how to extract business value from LLMs and how to apply them to specific use cases;

• A book on how to approach problems introduced by LLMs: hallucinations, jailbreaking, bias, existential risks, etc.

Acknowledgements

• My family and my dog: For support throughout my life 😃

• Aaron Clarey: Thanks for all the lessons and advice. Buy his books on Amazon and subscribe to his Youtube channel

• Alan Watts: The person who’s had the biggest influence on my life. Buy his books on Amazon