Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
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Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#2They have two different definitions of "artificial intelligence," which is where the schism seems to be arising from.
Chomsky takes the academic approach - artificial intelligence is the simulation of humanlike (or even possibly mammalian) intelligence.
Norvig is taking the engineering approach - artificial intelligence needs only to pass the Turing test.
They're both right, both approaches have value, and they both are bound by our limited technology at the moment.
In the end, though, Norvig will lose out. Sure, he'll make the finish line first - an AI capable of 'passing' the Turing test, but in order to have real intelligence you need an analytical engine (or brain, if you will) that can prioritize data without fiddling with bits. In the Norvig solution, someone will always have to be fiddling with the bits.
Chomsky's approach, on the other hand, will result in a 'true' artificial intelligence, the way neurologists understand it. It's just going to take a lot longer to get there.
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#3They have two different definitions of "artificial intelligence," which is where the schism seems to be arising from. Chomsky takes the academic approach - artificial intelligence is the simulation of humanlike (or even possibly mammalian) intelligence. Norvig is taking the engineering approach - artificial intelligence needs only to pass the Turing test. They're both right, both approaches have value, and they both…
Having studied Chomsky a fair bit in grad school, and also studied cognitive linguistics a fair bit in grad school, I think the idea that Chomsky's models will ever win anything is just wrong.
Chomsky's central problem is that his modeling is not based on anything biological at all. His models don't correspond to reality. Some of them were based on some assumptions about how the brain works that were untestable in the 50s and 60s when all of his linguistic models were developed, and have since become testable and are not particularly evident in the way we currently understand the brain to work.
Given this fact, I think your current best bet is Norvig as a modern approach to AI or anything linguistic-y. But this is only because it is slightly more grounded in reality rather than being something that Chomsky (who is a very smart guy) came up with on his own without the benefit of actual biological models of the brain.
In the end, I think there will be (eventually, a long time from now) an actual model of how the brain processes language based on actual observations of working brains that throws away much of what Chomsky has proposed but probably uses some of it and that doesn't use huge Google-esque lookup tables but is highly influenced by statistics.
But until we get to that point, statistics are probably your best bet since at least they're grounded in reality (unlike much of Chomsky's work).
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#4They have two different definitions of "artificial intelligence," which is where the schism seems to be arising from. Chomsky takes the academic approach - artificial intelligence is the simulation of humanlike (or even possibly mammalian) intelligence. Norvig is taking the engineering approach - artificial intelligence needs only to pass the Turing test. They're both right, both approaches have value, and they both…
But what exactly is true artificial intelligence? For example, I consider Google search and Wolfram alpha very intelligent. They can do math, answer questions, rank information, follow current events, ...
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#5They have two different definitions of "artificial intelligence," which is where the schism seems to be arising from. Chomsky takes the academic approach - artificial intelligence is the simulation of humanlike (or even possibly mammalian) intelligence. Norvig is taking the engineering approach - artificial intelligence needs only to pass the Turing test. They're both right, both approaches have value, and they both…
But what exactly is true artificial intelligence? For example, I consider Google search and Wolfram alpha very intelligent. They can do math, answer questions, rank information, follow current events, ...
They're still computers in the traditional sense - they only do what someone told them to do.
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#6Well, in the big picture, Chomsky created an activity which keeps liguists very busy. His approach, however, has contributed very little to language engineering.
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what exactly is true artificial intelligence? For example, I consider Google search and Wolfram alpha very intelligent. They can do math, answer questions, rank information, follow current events, ...
They're still computers in the traditional sense - they only do what someone told them to do.
I believe that you are then referring to sentience in addition to intelligence? Artificial sentient being is another thing entirely, I think. And tougher nut to crack :)
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#8Isn't this basically an argument over John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment?
It supposes that there is a program that gives a computer the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation in written Chinese. If the program is given to someone who speaks only English to execute the instructions of the program by hand, then in theory, the English speaker would also be able to carry on a conversation in written Chinese. However, the English speaker would not be able to understand the conversation. Similarly, Searle concludes, a computer executing the program would not understand the conversation either.
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#9They have two different definitions of "artificial intelligence," which is where the schism seems to be arising from. Chomsky takes the academic approach - artificial intelligence is the simulation of humanlike (or even possibly mammalian) intelligence. Norvig is taking the engineering approach - artificial intelligence needs only to pass the Turing test. They're both right, both approaches have value, and they both…
Having studied Chomsky a fair bit in grad school, and also studied cognitive linguistics a fair bit in grad school, I think the idea that Chomsky's models will ever win anything is just wrong. Chomsky's central problem is that his modeling is not based on anything biological at all. His models don't correspond to reality. Some of them were based on some assumptions about how the brain works that were untestable in th…
Children learn language much faster than it seems possible for a "blank" neural network to learn. It seems that there is some "circuitry" hard-wired into the human brain that helps learning language. So the question is: can a computer learn language as well as a human, without simply hard-coding language into it?
Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI
#10Isn't this basically an argument over John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment? It supposes that there is a program that gives a computer the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation in written Chinese. If the program is given to someone who speaks only English to execute the instructions of the program by hand, then in theory, the English speaker would also be able to carry on a conversation in written C…
The argument is whether a computer can learn language (well) from scratch, or whether some capacity for language must be built into the computer manually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_of_the_stimulus