Chapter 4: The Bigram Model - Simplest Possible Language Model

📰 Dev.to · Gary Jackson

Learn to implement a bigram model, the simplest possible language model, to predict the next token in a sequence and establish a loss baseline before using neural networks.

intermediate Published 23 Apr 2026
Action Steps
  1. Implement a counting-based bigram model to predict the next token in a sequence.
  2. Calculate the probability of each token given its preceding token using the bigram model.
  3. Establish a loss baseline using the bigram model before moving to neural networks.
  4. Compare the performance of the bigram model with more complex language models.
  5. Use the bigram model as a foundation for building more advanced language models.
Who Needs to Know This

This lesson is useful for machine learning engineers and data scientists who want to understand the fundamentals of language modeling and build a foundation for more complex models.

Key Insight

💡 The bigram model is a simple yet effective way to establish a baseline for language modeling tasks and can be used as a foundation for building more complex models.

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📚 Learn to implement a bigram model, the simplest possible language model, to predict the next token in a sequence! #machinelearning #language modeling
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