
Is Chomsky's Theory of Language Wrong? Pinker Weighs in on Debate - grzm
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-chomskys-theory-of-language-wrong-pinker-weighs-in-on-debate/?wt.mc=SA_Twitter-Share
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grzm
_It’s all too easy to claim that children don’t need any innate priors or
assumptions or representations, only to sneak them back in when it comes to
get serious and implement a model. That was the trick in a lot of the neural-
network models of language that were popular in the 80s and 90s – when the
rubber met the road, they always built in innate structure without calling
attention to it._

From the outside, seems like there are still similarities wrt ML and current
AI.

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cocktailpeanuts
Saying Chomsky is wrong is like saying Newton is wrong. Or Freud is wrong.

A good theory is valuable because it provides a way of making sense of the
world.

There are some theories where it CAN actually be proven wrong (like the old
theory that the earth is flat, etc.), but it's stupid to say something is
"wrong" when it cannot be proven wrong by definition, nor is it meant to be
right or wrong.

No one understands how human beings work. Unless if you're a God.

~~~
kafkaesq
But the thing about Chomsky is that pretended to "know" how a certain function
of the brain worked (and on a level much more complex than F = ma, and much
more specific than anything offered by Freud), well ahead of any available
evidence.

