Dust off your encoders: what a 25M-parameter model plus NLI can still do

MaziyarPanahi · x · 2026-09-18

Dev Maziyar Panahi recommends Hugging Face's task guides to refresh knowledge lost in the decoder-only era: encoder models remain surprisingly capable, and a 25M-parameter model using NLI (contradiction/entailment/neutral) can handle tasks like zero-shot classification. The reply jokes that 'kids these days don't know what encoders are' and teases new demos for the Jev model. A useful refresher for developers wanting cheap text classification and retrieval.

Related event: Remember Encoders: Small NLI Models Still Pack a Punch(2 posts)→

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