
Fair play for machines: Chomsky's misreading of Turing, and why it matters - djestrada
http://digitalinterface.blogspot.com/2013/12/chomskys-misreading-of-turing-and-why.html
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yetanotherphd
I'm not an expert in AI or NLP, but my impression is that Chomsky is opposed
to any progress in formal semantics, probably because it goes beyond the
formal syntax that he worked on. Luckily everyone in the field is free to
ignore him and work on it anyway.

There was a beautiful attempt by Roger Schank and his students to come up with
a better mathematical description of human reasoning. This fizzled out without
making much progress, but who knows what the future holds.

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calibraxis
I enjoyed this article. But to clarify Chomsky's claim, he once used the
analogy of submarines. In some languages (Russian, I vaguely recall?),
submarines swim. In English, submarines don't swim. It's a matter of language.
Any of us would be willing to accept the analogy, unless we're being really
pedantic; it's not a big deal.

(I personally used the analogy last week, when I said, "I believe that was
2011, but maybe your computer thinks otherwise?" and the (non-IT) person
immediately understood without comment.)

~~~
djestrada
Jay Gordon defends Chomsky's view more thoroughly against my criticism here:
[https://plus.google.com/110181959253415840755/posts/7y2s5e9S...](https://plus.google.com/110181959253415840755/posts/7y2s5e9Sggk)

I also leave some responses on that post.

~~~
calibraxis
Thank you!

A little off-topic, I like the idea of seeing AI research as an industry, and
looking at institutional problems which make its output worse. Anthropologist
David Graeber discusses this in
([http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars](http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars))
and ([https://vimeo.com/41863599](https://vimeo.com/41863599)).

(The article and video focus on different things; the article's editors
removed some arguments about bureaucratic technologies — on the internet, we
fill out forms all day — and the video delves more into that.)

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eruditely
This article was incredible. A clear and simple handling of a difficult
subject. Brilliant.

~~~
djestrada
Thanks, I appreciate it!

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juliangamble
The conclusion is a pleasant antidote to the title (which to its credit got me
to read it).

>It's time we all play fair.

Turing and Chomsky are both giants, but its a mistake to suggest they're
operating in the same field. This mistake is also made by people who read the
'conflict' between Norvig and Chomsky as saying anything about the future of
AI:

[http://norvig.com/chomsky.html](http://norvig.com/chomsky.html)

[http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/06/norvig-vs-chomsky-and-
the-f...](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/06/norvig-vs-chomsky-and-the-fight-
for-the-future-of-ai)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/noam-c...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/noam-
chomsky-on-where-artificial-intelligence-went-wrong/261637/)

(Norvig is also a giant - but he is at least honest about the limitations and
scope of his work).

Turing was essentially speaking to his context at the time:

> Turing says the question "can machines think" isn't helpful in this process
> because it invokes conceptual and prejudicial biases about "thinking" and
> "machines" that themselves can't be clearly resolved, largely because they
> rely on confused metaphysical (or superstitious) beliefs. Turing's claim of
> "meaninglessness" reflects the positivist attitude of the scientists and
> logicians that formed Turing's intellectual community.

Chomsky is coming from a philosophical and linguistic background and saying
that AI hasn't gone as far as he hoped it would:

> Chomsky has a generally very pessimistic view of AI and he's trying to
> enlist Turing on his side but it's simply an abuse of the view. Chomsky also
> claims in this interview that the last 40 years of AI research "hasn't given
> any insight to speak of into the nature of thought and organization of
> action".

For some really awesome stuff in terms of the future of AI - the person to
look at is Jeff Hawkins:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_w...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing.html)

[http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Brain-
Computing](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Brain-Computing)

I'm massively oversimplifying - but it looks like his group has built some
products by modelling a Cortical Learning Algorithm. In a Computer Science
sense - this looks like a bitset corresponding to memories of facts - that you
can then 'diff' \- to make higher level judgments. The example he gave was
groups of idea relations on wikipedia. Taking the ideas for 'Apple' and
subtracting the ideas for 'Fruit' \- left you with the ideas for 'Computer'.

~~~
p1esk
Norvig claims you can make progress in AI using probability theory and
statistical analysis (IBM Watson style), and Chomsky is clearly skeptical
about that approach. Seems like a conflict to me.

I do like Hawkins' ideas, but so far neither he, nor Dileep George has made
any significant breakthroughs, and it's been 10 years since "On Intelligence"
was published.

