Using a pre-trained GPT-2 model as a text generator

Using the transformers library together with PyTorch, we can load most of the latest advanced transformer models for performing various tasks such as language modeling, text classification, machine translation, and so on. We demonstrated how to do so in Chapter 5, Hybrid Advanced Models.

In this section, we will load the pre-trained GPT-2-based language model. We will then extend this model so that we can use it as a text generator. Then, we will explore the various strategies we can follow to generate text from a pre-trained language model and use PyTorch to demonstrate those strategies.

Out-of-the-box text generation with GPT-2

In the form of an exercise, we will load a pre-trained GPT-2 language model using the transformers library and extend this language model as a text generation model to generate arbitrary yet meaningful texts. We will only show the important parts of the code for demonstration purposes. In order to...