Seventh International Conference on “Computational Linguistics in Bulgaria”

The 7th International Conference on “Computational Linguistics in Bulgaria” (CLIB 2026), organised by the “Prof. Lyubomir Andreychin” Institute for Bulgarian Language – BAS, began today in Sofia. The conference was opened by the institute’s director, Prof. Svetla Koeva, and Prof. Sylvia Ilieva, director of the “Big Data for Smart Society” Institute (GATE), and Veselin Georgiev, Chief Technology Officer of Plan A, also addressed the participants with welcoming remarks. Support for the conference was also expressed by “A Data Pro” whose representative attended the opening ceremony.

The programme began with a plenary lecture by Prof. Preslav Nakov from the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence on the topic ‘Factuality Challenges in the Era of Large Language Models’ which focused on the challenges of establishing factual accuracy in the era of large language models.

The topic sparked keen interest among the participants, and following the lecture, the audience put numerous questions to Prof. Nakov. The discussion touched on topical issues relating to the capabilities and limitations of artificial intelligence and the reliability of information generated by large language models.

Over the coming days, CLIB 2026 will continue with lectures, presentations and discussions focusing on some of the most topical issues in the fields of artificial intelligence, large language models, natural language processing and language technologies.

Among the internationally recognised speakers was Prof. Ruslan Mitkov from Lancaster University and the University of Alicante, who, on 7 September, gave a lecture tracing the development of natural language processing in the age of artificial intelligence. During the ensuing discussion, questions were raised regarding the future of language technologies and artificial intelligence as well as their significance for the advancement of human knowledge.

The programme also includes research into the detection of AI-generated text in Bulgarian, the evaluation of AI-generated news, the development of tools for checking Bulgarian grammar, language resources and the security of AI systems.