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| Noam Chomsky/From The Atlantic |
If he is right,
and I think he’s at least in the right ballpark, I think this arguably explains
why AI, for all its self-touting, is the biggest research science and
technology failure this side of peaceful fusion power. Indeed, progress on the
two shares a remarkably similar arc.
The interview
is indeed worth a read. It’s in-depth, and as the Atlantic editor-reporter
notes, it’s rare these days, because everybody wants to interview Chomsky on
political topics, not scientific ones.
Beyond his “behaviorist”
comments, he suggests AI researchers, and at least some people in fields such
as his own cognitive science, are still doing research on mind and intelligence
at what might be called the wrong level of abstraction. It brings to mind Dan
Dennett’s comment (ironic at times, given Dennett) of “greedy reductionism.”
It also brings
to mind Paul Davies’ book “The Eerie Silence,” which criticizes SETI, the
Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, for various blinders it may be
wearing in its search.
Chomsky, in the
interview, also veers at least a bit into his home turf of linguistics. As part
of that, he doesn’t have a lot of good to say about Bayesian statistics.
He says there
are better ways for us to try to understand the “noise” with which we are
bombarded on a daily basis.
To me, Bayesian
statistics seems like “the hip thing” for pop and semi-pop observers of human
cultural sociology. All it needs is a new book by Malcolm Gladwell.
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For a more
in-depth analysis of what I see Chomsky’s meaning, go here at my philosophy and
arts blog.
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