Using Longformer for Summarization with the Billsum Dataset

Jun 25, 2023 | Educational

Creating summaries of legal texts and documents can be daunting, especially for those sifting through lengthy penal codes. This guide walks you through using the Longformer Encoder-Decoder model fine-tuned on the Billsum dataset to efficiently summarize long legal documents. Whether you are a lawyer, a student, or an AI enthusiast, this hands-on article will simplify the summarization process using machine learning.

Getting Started

Before we dive into the code, ensure you have it all set up. You’ll need to install the transformers library for Python, which includes the Longformer model for sequence-to-sequence tasks.

pip install transformers

Loading the Model

Just like having the right tools to fix a car, loading the necessary libraries and models is crucial for your summarization task. Below is the code to import the necessary libraries and load the pre-trained model:

from transformers import AutoTokenizer, AutoModelForSeq2SeqLM

tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("Artifact-AIled_base_16384_billsum_summarization")
model = AutoModelForSeq2SeqLM.from_pretrained("Artifact-AIled_base_16384_billsum_summarization")

Now, let’s think of this step like preparing your ingredients before cooking—having everything in place will make the process smoother.

How to Summarize Text

Once you have loaded the model, summarizing your text is as straightforward as baking a cake! Just follow these steps:

  • First, prepare your input text.
  • Use the tokenizer to encode the text into a format that the model can understand.
  • Generate the summary using the model.
  • Finally, decode the summary back into a human-readable format.
  • input_text = "The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTIONHEADER ... (your long text here)"
    inputs = tokenizer(input_text, return_tensors="pt", max_length=4096, truncation=True)
    
    summary_ids = model.generate(inputs['input_ids'], max_length=150, min_length=40, length_penalty=2.0, num_beams=4, early_stopping=True)
    
    summary = tokenizer.decode(summary_ids[0], skip_special_tokens=True)
    
    print(summary)

    Understanding Outputs

    The performance metrics of this model are impressive!

    • Rouge-1: 47.672
    • Rouge-2: 26.737
    • Rouge-L: 34.568
    • Rouge-Lsum: 41.529

    These scores help you understand how closely the generated summary aligns with human-generated summaries, akin to determining if your cake tastes like the one from the bakery you sought inspiration from!

    Troubleshooting Tips

    If you encounter any issues when running the above code, consider the following troubleshooting tips:

    • Ensure you have the correct version of the transformers library.
    • Make sure your input text is not too lengthy; reduce its size as needed.
    • Verify that your environment is set up to use PyTorch if you run into memory-related errors.

    For more insights, updates, or to collaborate on AI development projects, stay connected with fxis.ai.

    Final Thoughts

    This guide provides you with an accessible way to harness the power of AI for the summarization of dense legal documents. At fxis.ai, we believe that such advancements are crucial for the future of AI, as they enable more comprehensive and effective solutions. Our team is continually exploring new methodologies to push the envelope in artificial intelligence, ensuring that our clients benefit from the latest technological innovations.

    Next Steps

    Feel free to explore further by experimenting with different texts, adjusting parameters in your model, or diving deeper into the underlying architectures of transformer models! Happy summarizing!

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