Why are we even bothering talking about this? It's Gary Marcus "neural networks don't really work" suddenly discovering they do, and literally trying to shut down research in that area while keeping his prefered research areas funded. We know a bunch of the people whose names are on the letter didn't sign it (eg Yann Lecunn who said he disagreed with the premise and didn't sign it). I'm so offended by the idea of thi…
> It's Gary Marcus "neural networks don't really work" suddenly discovering they do, and literally trying to shut down research in that area while keeping his prefered research areas funded Gary Marcus has been aware that neural nets work for a while now, but he is only in the spotlight for his contrarian take, if he stops having a contrarian take he disappears, because it's not like he is producing any research wort…
To assume that the person you disagree with can only hold their view out of cynical self-interest, wishful thinking or plain insanity is to assume that you are so obviously right that there can be no valid debate. That is a bad starting position and I'd recommend against it as a matter of principle. Apart from anything else, however convinced you are of your own rightness it's plain rude to assume everyone else is equally convinced, and ad-hominem to ascribe negative motives to those who disagree.
As for Gary Marcus, as far as I've seen he's been consistent in his views and respectful in the way he's argued them. To read about him on HN you'd think he's spent the last few years badmouthing every AI researcher around, but I haven't seen that, just disagreement with people's statements - i.e. healthy debate. I haven't followed him closely though, so if you know of any cases where he's gone beyond that and said the sorts of things about AI researchers that people routinely say about him I'd interested to see them.