Cited by 48Topic ModelingData Quality and ManagementNatural Language Processing Techniques

Can language models automate data wrangling?

Open access
Jaimovitch-López, Gonzalo, Ferri, Cèsar, Hernández-Orallo, José, Martínez-Plumed, Fernando, Ramírez-Quintana, María José·2023·Machine Learning

Abstract

The automation of data science and other data manipulation processes depend on the integration and formatting of ‘messy’ data. Data wrangling is an umbrella term for these tedious and time-consuming tasks. Tasks such as transforming dates, units or names expressed in different formats have been challenging for machine learning because (1) users expect to solve them with short cues or few examples, and (2) the problems depend heavily on domain knowledge. Interestingly, large language models today (1) can infer from very few examples or even a short clue in natural language, and (2) can integrate vast amounts of domain knowledge. It is then an important research question to analyse whether language models are a promising approach for data wrangling, especially as their capabilities continue growing. In this paper we apply different variants of the language model Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) to five batteries covering a wide range of data wrangling problems. We compare the effect of prompts and few-shot regimes on their results and how they compare with specialised data wrangling systems and other tools. Our major finding is that they appear as a powerful tool for a wide range of data wrangling tasks. We provide some guidelines about how they can be integrated into data processing pipelines, provided the users can take advantage of their flexibility and the diversity of tasks to be addressed. However, reliability is still an important issue to overcome.

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Crossref · 10.1007/s10994-022-06259-9

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  • GPT-3 has been suggested as a tool for helping writers and content creators generate ideas and overcome writer's block, and as a means of automating the production of repetitive or time-consuming content tasks.

    “However, GPT-3 has also been suggested as a tool for helping writers and content creators generate ideas and overcome writer's block (Duval et al., 2020), and as a means of automating the production of repetitive or time-consuming content tasks (Jaimovitch-López et al., 2022).”

    From Chatting and cheating: Ensuring academic integrity in the era of ChatGPT (2024) · cites this paper as Jaimovitch-López et al., 2022

    The Introduction (page unavailable in our copy) describes data wrangling as repetitive and time-consuming and discusses automating those tasks with language models. The paper supports the automation part of the claim, but its tasks concern data preparation, not the production of content for writers or content creators. The writer’s-block clause is cited to a different source in the citing sentence. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Research works printed but not linked: 18

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Jaimovitch-López, G., Ferri, C., Hernández-Orallo, J., Martínez-Plumed, F., & Ramírez-Quintana, M. J.
Affiliations
Universitat Politècnica de València (ES)
Venue
Machine Learning
Published
2022-12-01
Volume
112
Issue
6
Pages
2053-2082
ISSN
  • 0885-6125 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-0565
OpenAlex
W4310529830
Cited by
48
References
44
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 1
FWCI
3.04
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Machine Learning (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RiuNet (Universitat Politècnica de València) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
  • Future of Life Institute (RFP2-152)
  • MIT-Spain - INDITEX Sustainability Seed Fund (COST-OMIZE)
  • Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España (RTI2018-094403-B-C32)
  • Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEO/2019/098, NNEST/2021/317)
  • Horizon 2020 (952215 (TAILOR))
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (HR00112120007 ReCOG-A)
  • Universidad Politècnica de València
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Topic Modeling
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Data Quality and Management
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Natural Language Processing Techniques
Keywords
data wrangling, large language models, GPT, prompt engineering, few-shot learning, data integration, data transformation, data pipelines

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