Waning Breakthroughs? Investigating the State of Innovation in the Field of NLP

Abebe Gasparini, Carl Hannes Lohmander, Keeheon Lee

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

In this study, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) community. Our research hinged on key theoretical frameworks, including Polanyi's republic of science, Kuhn's paradigm shifts, Popper's falsificationism, and Lakatos's scientific research programs. In this study, we hypothesized that authors with higher co-authorship centrality and greater topic diversity could indicate innovative research that contributes to paradigm shifts. Through an evaluation of author productivity, institutional contributions, thematic mapping, topic modeling and co-citation networks, we reveal the vital role of academic institutions, the centrality of specific research themes within the community as well as a shift in research focus from the early pioneering explorations on the foundations of AI to the more recent commercially focused engineering implementations of machine learning techniques. This exploration allowed us to assess the state of the NLP community, and to draw the potential steps necessary to avoid an excessive narrowing of focus in the community's research agendas and to preserve the long-term relevance of NLP-based AI research for the broader scientific community. Our proposed future investigations include expanding the datasets to better identify niche research programs and training deep learning models to analyze semantic content. With this research, we hope to inform researchers, policymakers and business leaders alike on the measures, incentives and research objectives necessary to make the NLP community a true republic of science.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPICMET 2024 - 2024 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology
Subtitle of host publicationTechnology Management in the Artificial Intelligence Era, Proceedings
EditorsDundar F. Kocaoglu, Timothy R. Anderson, Dilek Cetindamar Kozanoglu, Kiyoshi Niwa, Harm-Jan Steenhuis
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781890843458
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024
Event2024 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology, PICMET 2024 - Portland, United States
Duration: 2024 Aug 42024 Aug 8

Publication series

NamePICMET 2024 - 2024 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology: Technology Management in the Artificial Intelligence Era, Proceedings

Conference

Conference2024 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology, PICMET 2024
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPortland
Period24/8/424/8/8

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 PICMET.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Business and International Management
  • Management of Technology and Innovation
  • Strategy and Management
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Decision Sciences (miscellaneous)

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