BERTian Poetics: Constrained Composition with Masked LMs

Code

• github.com/webis-de/ml4cd-21
  OfficialIn papernone★ 6

Abstract

Masked language models have recently been interpreted as energy-based sequence models that can be generated from using a Metropolis--Hastings sampler. This short paper demonstrates how this can be instrumentalized for constrained composition and explores the poetics implied by such a usage. Our focus on constraints makes it especially apt to understand the generated text through the poetics of the OuLiPo movement.

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