How Encoder Transformers Actually Understand Language

The evolution of the attention mechanism in encoder only models. From BERT to ModernBERT The AI world is currently obsessed with models that talk. GPT-4, Claude 3, and Llama have become the charismatic orators of our era, generating essays, code, and poetry one word at a time. But in the shadow of these generative giants, a different kind of revolution has been quietly dominating the enterprise: the models that listen.