How Self-Attention Actually Works (Simple Explanation)

DEV CommunityWednesday, November 5, 2025 at 10:48:50 AM
How Self-Attention Actually Works (Simple Explanation)
Self-attention is a groundbreaking concept that enhances how modern Transformer models like BERT, GPT, and T5 operate. By enabling models to grasp the relationships between words in a sequence, regardless of their position, self-attention overcomes the limitations of earlier models like RNNs and LSTMs, which processed words sequentially. This innovation allows for better understanding of long-range dependencies in language, making it a crucial development in natural language processing.
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