Building a Swedish Open-Domain Conversational Language Model

Abstract: We present on-going work of evaluating the, to our knowledge, first large generative LLM trained to converse in Swedish, using data from the online discussion forum Flashback. We conduct a human evaluation pilot study that indicates the model is often able to respond to conversations in both a human-like and informative manner, on a diverse set of topics. While data from online forums can be useful to build conversational systems, we reflect on the negative consequences that incautious application might have, and the need for taking active measures to safeguard against them.