Statistical Methods in Generative Artificial Intelligence

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as an important technology, promising to be transformative in many areas. At the same time, generative AI techniques are based on sampling from probabilistic models, and, by default, they come with no guarantees about correctness, safety, fairness, or other properties. Statistical methods offer a promising approach to improve the reliability of generative AI techniques. In addition, statistical methods are also promising for improving the quality and efficiency of AI evaluation, as well as for designing interventions and experiments in AI. In this article, we review some of the existing work on these topics, explaining both the general statistical techniques used and their applications to generative AI. We also discuss limitations and potential future directions.