What is Natural Language Processing (NLP)?

NLP is a field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that focuses on the interaction between computers and human language, specifically how to program computers to process and analyze large amounts of natural language data.

What is the core goal of NLP?

The core goal is to enable machines not just to read words, but to truly understand the meaning, intent, context, and sentiment conveyed in human language, whether written or spoken.

What are the two main types of input data processed by NLP?

The two main types of input data are written text (like documents, emails, or web pages) and spoken language (which is often first converted to text using speech recognition).

What key technologies are leveraged by NLP?

NLP heavily leverages Machine Learning and Deep Learning, particularly recurrent and transformer-based neural networks (like RNNs and Transformers), to perform complex linguistic tasks and generate human-like text.

Can you Name three common applications of NLP?

Three common applications are:

• Sentiment Analysis: Determining the emotional tone (positive, negative, neutral) of a text.
• Machine Translation: Automatically translating text from one language to another (e.g., Google Translate).
• Chatbots/Virtual Assistants: Enabling conversational interfaces to interact with users using natural speech or text.

What is a critical first step in processing text data in NLP?

A critical first step is usually Tokenization, which involves breaking down the stream of text into smaller units, such as words or sub-words, which the computer can then process.