Join us on Sept 28: What is the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group learning about NLP for evaluation?

With the debut and the accompanying excitement surrounding ChatGPT and other large language models, evaluation teams have been actively assessing their utility in their day-to-day work.

Notably, the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) group undertook a series of experiments employing various AI models and methodologies across diverse phases of the evaluation process. These trials encompassed a broad spectrum of tasks pertinent to the team’s responsibilities, including code creation and explanation to conducting analysis or content synthesis.

The team found that various Natural Language Processing (NLP) models worked well at writing and explaining code, summarizing individual documents, and conducting simple classifications, sentiment analysis, and econometric analysis. However, challenges arose when employing GPT for tasks like generating synthetic images for geospatial data augmentation, conducting literature reviews, and synthesizing evaluation findings, often resulting in hallucinated or overly similar content. 

At our next NLP-CoP open meeting, the IEG group will elaborate on their use of NLP and their recent exploration of the potential applications of generative AI within their field. 

September 28th NLP-CoP Meeting

Join us on Thursday, September 28, 2023 for our next NLP-CoP Open meeting (7am PST / 10am ET / 3pm UK / 4pm CET / 4pm SAST / 7:30 Delhi / 10pm Manila).

Please let us know if you would be keen to be a presenter at one of our future meetings!

Speakers Estelle Raimondo (Program Manager) and Harsh Anuj from the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group will discuss:

• How and why IEG applies NLP
• Applying NLP for complex portfolio identification
• Applying supervised ML for portfolio analysis
• Experimenting with GPT to increase the speed and accuracy of key processes

There will be ample time for participants to share their own ideas and questions.

This meeting is open to both CoP members and non members.

Register now!

Register here to join the meeting. (Upon registration, you will receive a link for the call).

Join the NLP-CoP!

The NLP-CoP welcomes all Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) practitioners and data practitioners interested in using text analytics approaches for MERL in the development, humanitarian, peacebuilding, and related social sectors. All MERL practitioners are welcome, no prior knowledge of text analytics is needed. Specialist data scientists and NLP specialists are also welcome. Working Group meetings will cover both technical and non-technical aspects; e.g. ethical and inclusive use.

To join please fill in this form indicating your agreement and alignment with the NLP-CoP Charter and Code of Conduct.