
Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer - bgraves
http://www.framingbusiness.net/archives/1287
======
chubot
You have to respect Chomsky, but he certainly comes off like a curmudgeon
here. He can't even be bothered to clearly explain his lack of interest in
Watson.

It seems less like lack of interest than anger at what he sees as a misguided
approach. I think he thinks that Watson and Deep Blue are "brute force"
solutions (hence the steamroller metaphor), while his work on the relation of
computation and grammar (and the vision guy he mentioned) actually get at the
core of intelligence.

He may think there is a small elegant machine in the brain that understands
grammar, and which is of course computational. He may be right but Watson is
still interesting for any reasonably curious person. It's not obvious how much
brute force you need to play Jeopardy.

~~~
tensor
I find it curious why so many people think that there is a small and elegant
machine in the brain. In terms of brute force computation, the brain is still
far, far in the lead. It has so many neural connections that we are not even
close to simulating it yet.

Given that, assuming that it implements some small and elegant algorithm is a
very strange assumption to make.

~~~
cma
Chomsky's work again and again focuses on how language develops given the
paucity of data (linguistic examples) the child is exposed to--Watson and
Google Translate (according to Norvig's NY Post article) both rely on orders
of magnitude more data.

Brute force is a good approach given our current technology and understanding,
but it isn't necessarily similar to the brain.

~~~
kenjackson
But the brain appears to be tuned for language. And also that the brain also
gets two years of training before the first words really appear. And its
probably 8 years before it can parse with Jeopardy style questions.

I don't think anyone thinks they're meant to be similar. It's not
neurobiology, it's computer science.

------
fefzero
I liked Kurzweil's response best: "As long as AI has any flaws or limitations,
people will jump on these. By the time that the set of these limitations is
nil, AI will have long since surpassed unaided human intelligence."

Watson isn't the end, it's a building block. It's true that it's been largely
hyped to some degree, but I think that opens doors that wouldn't have been
opened otherwise. Chomsky's dismissal seems too quick.

~~~
grandalf
Chomsky's point is that he doesn't think brute force AI really accomplishes
much toward a theory of mind. He may be right or wrong about this, but it's an
empirically testable point (over time).

He indicates that his inclination is toward a different research approach
which is not brute force oriented (meaning it's more
algorithmically/conceptually sophisticated but not fundamentally different).

This is why he trivializes the notion of "intelligence"... b/c he probably has
a hard time calling the approach he favors intelligence, much less a far less
intelligent brute force approach.

In Chomsky's world, intelligence essentially refers to "innate knowlege
systems". If it's brute force than it's totally non-innate.

------
calibraxis
People would do well reading Chomsky's many writings on the subject, rather
than reacting to these tiny snippets. Like maybe "Language and Problems of
Knowledge: the Managua Lectures" or "Language and Thought".

[http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=turing+...](http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=turing+test+inauthor:chomsky&num=10)

A quick email conversation or off-the-cuff interview is too brief to convey
the context. Most of the dismissive comments here don't seem to engage that
context in a way that makes me confident that they're informed by it.

------
tzs
Steamrollers, even bigger ones don't learn from their mistakes. Watson does.
For example, in one of the auditions they did for the Jeopardy producers, the
questions in the category each referred to two holidays which occurred in the
same calendar month, and the question was supposed to ask what is that month.

Watson did not get it. it was finding sensible answers, but answers that did
not fit the category. It got a couple wrong, then stopped buzzing on that
category. After it saw the correct answers from the other contestants for a
few, it started buzzing again, with the correct answers.

~~~
synnik
There is a difference between learning from your mistakes and using the same
algorithm on an updated data source.

~~~
burgerbrain
Is there? I don't touch things that cause pain. I, in ignorance, touch a hot
stove. Now I no longer touch hot stoves, but my algorithm remained the same.

Even if you were right, it'd just be another example of "do submarines swim?".
The difference is meaningless.

~~~
synnik
Yes, there is a difference, and it is not meaningless.

Let's go with your example. You don't touch things that cause pain. And you
think that hot stoves, fire, etc cause pain. But what if people show you the
trick to walking over hot coals? Then you are able to touch an object that you
previously would not have. Not because your list of items that cause pain has
changed, but because you developed a deeper understanding of WHY they caused
pain, and adjust your algorithm to take that into account. You now are
thinking about HOW you are touching an object, and not just about the object
itself.

To me, this is a clear, meaningful difference. We're not talking about
semantics, we're talking about a fundamental adjustment to the questions and
processes you go through before making a decision.

~~~
kenjackson
I think you're viewing this too simplistically (although I'm about to walk
down a mighty simple path myself).

Lets just imagine that we're using NN, and of course ML is large topic, not
limited to NN, but this is sufficient for now. Adding new data points changes
the weights on the neural network -- or can even add new inputs or hidden
layers.

I don't actually know what the hot coals trick is, but lets say that it is
walking over them at the right rate -- this info gets added to the inputs,
with no burning as the output (of course its probably not a step function).

Basically you've now increased what you know... burning is a function of
temperature and duration.

No change to the fundamental algorithm.

To be clear... adding a new data point doesn't just change how you react to
that one piece of stimulus, but depending on what context is provided, it can
change all the weights and structure of the NN. Effectively, change your world
view.

------
jokermatt999
Two great minds, too brief answers.

However, Kurzweil has written about it elsewhere. I don't know enough about
Chomsky to know if he's expressed his opinions on AI in more depth, but he
seems to be suggesting AI can never really "think".

~~~
joshes
I agree with your comment about the exaggerated brevity. But I am not so
certain he is commenting that AI will never be capable of thought. My reading
of his comment, and of the original Turing paper which he is citing (Computing
Machinery and Intelligence by AM Turing, 1950), is that the term "think" needs
to be re-thought itself. That is to say, the common use of the word "think" to
differentiate between the processes of AI and Natural intelligence is
irrelevant at best, and misguided at worst. But I may be way off.

------
kfranken
Turing's paper is available online:
<http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/content/LIX/236/433.full.pdf>

It's 28 pages, not the 8 pages claimed by Chomsky, but it's quite readable.

------
iwwr
There is probably no way of formally proving that an AI actually has general
intelligence on a human level. The Turing test is merely a more elaborate way
of saying "we'll know one when we see one".

A generally intelligent AI will not be passive, it will demand to be
recognized for what it is and perhaps as an independent creature with rights.
We would be wise not to try to enslave these creatures.

~~~
Jach
You're projecting your own mind design onto the minds of all possible AGIs.
You don't know whether it/they will be active or passive or think as an
individual or have a concept of rights or have any preference toward slavery.

~~~
MrScruff
Exactly, the majority of what our minds are concerned with is evolutionary
baggage derived from natural selection.

~~~
iwwr
It would be very strange if the AI had no self-image or were not concerned
with its own survival. If it's only lacking a self-image, it may become a
solipsistic entity of sorts.

~~~
tsotha
It's only strange because intelligence has never (by us, at least) been
constructed before.

------
bgraves
I loved the comparison of Watson to Deep Blue as a "bigger steamroller".

~~~
doron
Yeah, somewhat akin to saying "Noam Chomsky is just a better known linguist".
factually true, but misses much.

------
tjmaxal
To get to the heart of the debate, as a species, we still have trouble
quantifying what intelligence is. Regardless of its source or its scope.

------
asknemo
Calling a system "bigger steamroller" is easy and may make one sound cool, but
actually designing and making one that is as good as Watson is hard, much
harder than non-engineers will believe, and such attempts often give more
insights than mere paper-logic and debates IMHO. Ability to entertain
drastically different ideas is a feature of great minds.

~~~
grandalf
It is definitely a hard engineering problem, but a fundamentally different one
than engineering something that thinks, since the goal in this case is simply
to answer jeopardy questions correctly.

As Eliza demonstrates, simply doing something that seems "smart" is often
nearly trivial.

------
InclinedPlane
Chomsky is wrong headed.

You don't have to build a bird to build a 747. And you don't have to replicate
human cognition, reason, experience, culture, etc. to build a worthwhile
artificial intelligence.

I think this is the greatest error that many people make in approaching AI. AI
need not be complete, nor need it be like us, it merely needs to be functional
and useful. It may well be that an automated agent that can do limited
research for you in a manner similar in scope to Watson may not even remotely
"understand" in a human sense the knowledge it is exploring, but perhaps it
doesn't need to. Anymore than a 747 needs to understand how to fly.

------
sfphotoarts
Mankind has built a lot of civilization using bigger steamrollers.

------
eru
First thing I liked by Noam Chomsky. But I guess I shouldn't have read his
political writings.

------
ck2
Watson isn't an "end all" final solution, it's a step on a very long ladder.

------
ankimal
Was it just me or did someone else think this was satirical? It could be the
"bigger stem-roller" comment he made that made me think that.

------
olalonde
I stopped reading at "but not these devices to sell computers".

------
mhewett
I presume that Chomsky is not impressed with his own brain, since it is just a
"bigger steamroller" than other primate brains.

------
icandoitbetter
Yeah, and the brain is nothing more than a bunch of atoms. Nobody is aware
that you can make every single thing sound unimpressive by brutally reducing
it to its components, and nobody has used that trick before! Way to go,
Chomsky. Insightful as a twelve year old.

~~~
psykotic
> Way to go, Chomsky. Insightful as a twelve year old.

What an immature response. You're the one acting like a twelve year-old here.
Unless you've read a good portion of his writings on language and cognition
published through the last half century, you might not want to dismiss his
life's work based on an off-the-cuff response to a random email prodding him
for sound bites.

There are solid reasons to believe that purely empiricist approaches to
learning have fundamental limitations that seem incompatible with what we know
about human cognition. Those reasons (e.g. the poverty of the stimulus
argument) may be less convincing now than they were in the 60s but they are
still not easily dismissable. Keep in mind that Chomsky's goal is not to build
useful software but to uncover the roots and mechanisms of human language and
cognition.

~~~
icandoitbetter
Sorry, I'm not going respect silly one-line remark because he's a celebrity in
the field. This is exactly what he seems to be counting on, his 'authority':
he can say whatever stubbornly contrarian thing he wants and be considered
seriously because he's so established. If he didn't have time for an actual
response, he should have not responded in the first place. He did, and he will
be criticized for it.

~~~
psykotic
Just before you replied I added an extra paragraph with some background that
explains where he's coming from. If the standard critique of empiricism I
mention there is not familiar to you, you might want to study more before
passing judgement.

