decoder

In general, any ML system that converts from a processed, dense, or internal representation to a more raw, sparse, or external representation. Decoders are often a component of a larger model, where they are frequently paired with an encoder. In sequence-to-sequence tasks, a decoder starts with the internal state generated by the encoder to predict the next sequence. Refer to Transformer for the definition of a decoder within the Transformer architecture. See Large language models in Machine Learning Crash Course for more information.

Practitioners refer to decoder when building, training, or evaluating machine learning systems. It appears in research papers, product documentation, and technical discussions about AI capabilities and limitations.