An archival perspective on pretraining data

Alongside an explosion in research and development related to large language models, there has been a concomitant rise in the creation of pretraining datasets—massive collections of text, typically scraped from the web. Drawing on the field of archival studies, we analyze pretraining datasets as informal archives—heterogeneous collections of diverse material that mediate access to knowledge. We use this framework to identify impacts of pretraining data creation and use beyond directly shaping model behavior and reveal how choices about what is included in pretraining data necessarily involve subjective decisions about values. In doing so, the archival perspective helps us identify opportunities for researchers who study the social impacts of technology to contribute to confronting the challenges and trade-offs that arise in creating pretraining datasets at this scale.