Our research is centered on empirical research with LLMs. So if you are doing something similar, these tips on slide-based communication may be helpful!

Background:

James Chua and John Hughes are researchers working under Owain Evans and Ethan Perez, respectively. Both of us (James and John) used to be MATS mentees. We weren't good at making research slides at first -- here are some principles we've found useful for understandable slides for our weekly research meetings.

We show some good example slides. We also show examples of confusing slides we've made — marked in the caption with “❌ Negative example”.
Below we use the study of sycophancy as an example. Sycophancy occurs when a model has responses that match user beliefs rather than truthful ones.

Summary slide sets the frame

---

Outline:

(00:58) Summary slide sets the frame

(02:22) Include an agenda

(03:27) Simple charts to describe experiments

(07:30) Backup slides - Be ready for questions

(10:01) End with concrete discussion points

(10:19) Keep one slide deck per project

(10:48) Get consistent feedback on the story of your paper

(11:18) Ask your friends

(11:44) Investing time is worth it

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.