I stopped reading at "but not these devices to sell computers".
Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
41–49 of 49 posts
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#42You 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 vi…
How is deep blue playing Jeopardy anything more than eliza + google search? The steamroller metaphor is intended to illustrate the brute force aspect of the approach. Google + deep blue burns many many orders of magnitude more calories than a human.
There is a fundamental difference between Deep Blue and Watson: Deep Blue truly did just do a brute force search of a decision tree. Watson does not. It employs machine learning techniques to find correlations between words in the questions and words in its (enormous) data store.
Yes, Watson is brute force compared to a human brain. But Watson is still fundamentally different than the brute-force approach of traversing decision trees of a well-defined rule set.
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 understandi…
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.
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#45You 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 vi…
Is there any evidence that the computation in the human brain is not in fact "brute force"?
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#46[deleted]
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#47You 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 vi…
Is there any evidence that the computation in the human brain is not in fact "brute force"?
I think this is an excellent question. What is brute force anyway, but a perspective of scale? Take any complex system, break it down enough, and it starts to look like brute force.
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#48Chomsky 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.
Re: Noam Chomsky v. IBM’s Watson Computer
#49You 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 vi…
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong."
-- Arthur C. Clarke