https://x.com/safbf/status/1803154724415287513 Not dead
"Shameful and sad that Valeria Chomsky had to deny news of Noam Chomsky’s death over the phone here in Brazil, because a bunch of places decided to publish pre-written obituaries and posts at the first online rumour."
I had always had wanted to ask him if he didn’t think now that his critique of BF Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior” had been wrong after all, and that LLMs are the experimental proof of Skinner’s idea that simple conditioning can give rise to something that, to us, looks like intelligence.
Now I’ll never know.
(But maybe the two of them can have a discussion now in the afterlife, now that their worldly egos and public opinion are out of the way.)
I'd be fairly cautious in assuming that these more recent coauthored pieces by Chomsky represent his views very accurately. They're pretty crude by his standards and don't really read like his writing (though he may well have signed off on them in some sense).
There is some overlap with the content of recent interviews, but only some. In particular, the fussing over what is or isn’t “true intelligence” comes from Watumull and isn’t consistent with Chomsky’s past comments on AI over several decades.
Does anyone know why was he taken to Brazil? I know his wife is a Brazilian, but still. Perhaps medical costs?
It’s a very sad news for many of us. Still, knowing what happens with a massive stroke, I think it’s in his best interest to go. It’s going to be horrible, and the situation with caregivers is even more difficult.
> Valeria Chomsky said via email that her 95-year-old husband is in a Sao Paulo hospital, where she took him on an ambulance jet with two nurses once he could more easily travel from the United States following the June 2023 stroke. The couple has had a residence there since 2015.
Seems that you're partially correct. The AP says he was taken on an ambulance jet, not a rental one (or perhaps it's a rental ambulance jet, I don't know).
They also say this happened "once he could more easily travel from the United States following the June 2023 stroke". It sounds to me that they've been wanting to go back to Brazil since then. This may be because they live there and were keen to go back home; it could be because he has his regular doctors there who may be able to provide him with a better treatment; it may be that they would have better support (from his wife's family, for instance)...
In any case, they live there so it stands to reason that they would want to be back as soon as it was feasible.
Tried to add the death, but other editors are still in disagreement. It's not solidly confirmed yet. I don't think either Jacobin or New Statesmen are reliable sources for this kind of news (they don't usually do breaking news like that).
I was too lazy to log out but could see this much from Google search. Pinker said, (28 minutes ago):
"Reports today of Noam Chomsky's death (in Jacobin and New Statesman, since taken down) were greatly exaggerated. I have confirmation from..."
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/noam-chomskys-wife-r...