Vision, status, and research topics of Natural Language Processing

Abstract

The field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) has evolved with, and as well as influenced, recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computing technologies, opening up new applications and novel interactions with humans.Modern NLP involves machines’ interaction with human languages for the study of patterns and obtaining meaningful insights. NLP is increasingly receiving attention across academia and industry and demonstrates extraordinary opportunities and across AI applications (e.g., question answering, information retrieval, sentiment analysis, and recommender systems) and helps to deal with new tasks such as machine translation and reading comprehension, with real world performance improving all the time.This editorial first provides an overview of the field of NLP in terms of research grants, publication venues, and research topics. We then introduce the mission of Natural Language Processing Journal, a new NLP-focused Elsevier journal intended as a forum for researchers and practitioners to publish theoretical, practical, and methodological achievements related to trustworthy AI development and applications for analyzing, processing, and modeling human languages.