Nicholas Tomlin
PhD Student
Berkeley EECS
nicholas_tomlin@berkeley.edu
I'm a PhD student in Berkeley EECS, where I am advised by Dan Klein and affiliated with Berkeley NLP and BAIR. My research is funded by FAR AI and the NSF GRFP. Before coming to Berkeley, I was an undergrad at Brown University, where I majored in math and linguistics and was advised by Ellie Pavlick.
I am on the job market for academic and industry positions this year (2024-2025).
I'm broadly interested in natural language processing, with a focus on reasoning and multi-agent interaction. My primary line of research involves enabling language models to act rationally. I have worked on:
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Language models as rational agents
Language models are increasingly being used as agents that take actions in the real world. In contrast to game-playing agents like AlphaGo, however, language models often fail to act rationally. My research aims to bridge this gap by building language models that can reason, plan, and optimize complex goals.
✧ Understanding Game-Playing Agents with Natural Language Annotations (ACL 2022)
✧ Decision-Oriented Dialogue for Human-AI Collaboration (TACL 2024)
✧ Autonomous Evaluation and Refinement of Digital Agents (COLM 2024)
✧ Efficacy of Language Model Self-Play in Non-Zero-Sum Games (Preprint, 2024) -
Detecting LLM-generated text
We built Ghostbuster, the world's best supervised detector for LLM-generated text. It works by passing documents through a series of weaker language models, running a structured search over combinations of features from these models, and then training a linear classifier on the extracted features. For a more accessible technical overview of our model, please check out our post on the Berkeley AI Research Blog.
✧ Ghostbuster: Detecting Text Ghostwritten by Large Language Models (NAACL 2024)
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Computer crossword solving
We built the Berkeley Crossword Solver, a state-of-the-art system for solving American-style crosswords based on dense passage retrieval, belief propagation, and local search. In conjunction with Dr.Fill, our system was the first computer program to outscore all humans at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and was featured in Discover, Wired, New Scientist, Slate, and the BBC. I also co-wrote a pop article about the linguistics of crosswords for The Atlantic.
✧ Automated Crossword Solving (ACL 2022)
✧ The Unspoken Language of Crosswords (The Atlantic, 2023)