Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#91

Post by JabavuAdams » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

slurgfest wrote: post #78

JabavuAdams wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There isn't one algorithm in the human mind to decode all of our mental capabilities. Careful here. There could be one algorithm, but we may not be able to express its parameters in the way we like to for simple models. These statistical approaches are algorithms . It's the fact that we can't make sense of the parameters that seems to lead people to believe that they don't explain anything. The fact that we can't c…

You are right, these statistical approaches are algorithms. And they themselves are very simple and do not necessarily require a lot of initial state. And you are also right that it is extra hard to reverse-engineer these. But they amount to learning and search. And because of the politics of Chomsky's movement, it has always fought the concept of learning tooth and nail in favor of innate knowledge or ready-made mod…

Nauseating. Trashing my academic career is probably the best "mistake" I've made.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#92

Post by Jun8 » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:06 PM UTC

slurgfest wrote: post #89

Jun8 wrote: post #43

OK, let me start with two facts, one objective, one personal: (i) Noam Chomsky is a genius with many contributions to linguistics and computer science (ii) I think his overall influence had been damaging to linguistics. Here's a summary of Chomsky's career in layman's terms: As everyone knows, Chomsky first came to prominence with his critique of Skinner (who, as everyone also knows, was a total psycho). He pretty mu…

I am interested in how you come to the conclusion that Skinner was a total psycho. You actually seem to suggest that Skinner was an evil, mentally ill person and I would be interested to know what evidence there ever was for that.

Sorry for not being clear: The second paragraph was meant as a somewhat humorous summary what an informed non-expert would think about Chomsky and his work.

But even in academic circles his name had a bad vibe, like Anakin, who started out with so much promise but then went to the dark side. This is partly due to the huge backlash in the 70s (see page 2 of the Atlantic article).

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#93

Post by gnaritas » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:07 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #57

gnaritas wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, if you haven't read the book, I'm not interested in your opinions of his arguments; you don't know them. When someone recommends a book, you don't kill the messenger when your disagreement is with the author; don't be an ass.

I have read most of the language instinct. I get why people find it compelling, but that has little to do with being accurate. My point was his style tends to be convincing vs. his actual evidence being compelling. PS: Think of it like this A -> B, B -> C therefore A -> C is all well in good most of the time . A -> B .... Y -> Z therefore A -> Z only really works with math, build a chain that long and it's unlikely f…

And I don't find your point in the least bit compelling. Unless you're a leading expert in the field as he is, your points mean jack squat to me. And since I'm not making the argument, it's not argument from authority to say his book is far more convincing than your assertions without evidence. You're trying to debate me about a book I recommended; you're an ass. Goodbye.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#94

Post by Jun8 » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:10 PM UTC

icandoitbetter wrote: post #70

Jun8 wrote: post #43

OK, let me start with two facts, one objective, one personal: (i) Noam Chomsky is a genius with many contributions to linguistics and computer science (ii) I think his overall influence had been damaging to linguistics. Here's a summary of Chomsky's career in layman's terms: As everyone knows, Chomsky first came to prominence with his critique of Skinner (who, as everyone also knows, was a total psycho). He pretty mu…

> I detest politically motivated scientific theories Then you detest every scientific theory ever devised.

If you comment was not in jest, can you elaborate on why you think so? One can argue that all scientific theories are motivated to a larger or lesser extent by the prevalent world view of their day. But arguing, e.g. the Standard Model in physics is influenced by the politics of its day (~70s) is indeed bizarre.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#95

Post by brudgers » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

slurgfest wrote: post #88

brudgers wrote: post #30

Intellectually, there seems to be something as wrong with avoiding anthropomorphism when discussing human endeavors (such as language) as there is with anthropomorphic explanations of erosion or chemical reactions. Skinnarian approaches to language may leave people unsatisfied because there is no story, just clinical observation. Norvig's approach (as characterized in the article) takes the the "Artificial" in "Artif…

Skinner's book Verbal Behavior was mostly unsatisfying because it didn't have a lot of data; it really just laid out a research program which had not been carried out in any significant way (and now, never will be). Of course it is also unsatisfying that Skinner does not appeal to our sense that we already understand everything important about psychology and language "from the inside" and don't really need any stinki…

Just to clarify, my reference to Skinner was to be behaviorism in general or even more generally, radical empiricism in regards to human activities.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#96

Post by gbog » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:33 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #27

It's a little bit frustrating to read a rehash of an argument that was cutting edge maybe back in the late 90s, especially one that is so poorly written, and framed as a battle between two intellectuals. Chomsky's past his heyday. He has been seminal in his field, but he's no longer doing research which pushes at the boundaries of our understanding of language, how to model it, or what the fundamental nature of langu…

> we could be talking about more interesting things

Please do.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#97

Post by zzzeek » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:46 PM UTC

Jun8 wrote: post #43

OK, let me start with two facts, one objective, one personal: (i) Noam Chomsky is a genius with many contributions to linguistics and computer science (ii) I think his overall influence had been damaging to linguistics. Here's a summary of Chomsky's career in layman's terms: As everyone knows, Chomsky first came to prominence with his critique of Skinner (who, as everyone also knows, was a total psycho). He pretty mu…

I'm completely ignorant here - is it widely established that there's no link between how we think about things versus the languages we speak ? It seems intuitive that our ability to conceive of concepts would be dependent on having/creating language that can describe them, even in our own minds, but I have no idea how anyone could really know one way or the other.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#98

Post by azakai » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

First thing, please read the actual article by Norvig, it is excellent,

http://norvig.com/chomsky.html

Second: I found it astounding that the article never mentions Skinner. Surely this article is trying to do to Chomsky what Chomsky did to Skinner in 1959 ("A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior", http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htm ).

Chomsky basically marked the beginning of modern era of cognitive psychology with that essay, displaing the previous paradigm of behaviorism. Norvig's article has similar form in some ways to that article, and similar goals (to argue for a new paradigm over an older one). As I was reading it, I was sure Norvig had that context in mind. So I was surprised to read

> So how could Chomsky say that observations of language cannot be the subject-matter of linguistics? It seems to come from his viewpoint as a Platonist and a Rationalist and perhaps a bit of a Mystic

Well, no, Chomksy explained very well why he opposed observations being the subject matter of linguistics in his 1959 essay. Skinner's behaviorism looked only at observations and experience, and did away entirely with internal mental states. That might seem bizarre to us today, and the reason is in large part the shift heralded by Chomsky's article from behavioral psychology to cognitive psychology. In the latter, the goal is to understand the internal processes that are involved in psychology (or specifically language).

Statistical language models are not behaviorism. But they do share a lot with it, they are based primarily on raw empirical observations as opposed to deep models, so it is natural for Chomsky to oppose them on similar grounds (and not due to Platonism or Rationalism, although I suppose you can speculate that those motivated his 1959 essay too).

Side note, we can speculate that if Skinner had today's computers and statistical modelling methods, the shift from behaviorism to cognitivism might never have happened, seeing as the statistical approach is so successful.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#99

Post by mcguire » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 7:04 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #27

It's a little bit frustrating to read a rehash of an argument that was cutting edge maybe back in the late 90s, especially one that is so poorly written, and framed as a battle between two intellectuals. Chomsky's past his heyday. He has been seminal in his field, but he's no longer doing research which pushes at the boundaries of our understanding of language, how to model it, or what the fundamental nature of langu…

Non-Chomskian linguists? I was under the impression that, post-Chomsky, linguistics was defined as Chomskian; everyone else had left the field for whatever related discipline most closely matched what they wanted to do.

Re: Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI

#100

Post by Jun8 » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 7:05 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #97

Jun8 wrote: post #43

OK, let me start with two facts, one objective, one personal: (i) Noam Chomsky is a genius with many contributions to linguistics and computer science (ii) I think his overall influence had been damaging to linguistics. Here's a summary of Chomsky's career in layman's terms: As everyone knows, Chomsky first came to prominence with his critique of Skinner (who, as everyone also knows, was a total psycho). He pretty mu…

I'm completely ignorant here - is it widely established that there's no link between how we think about things versus the languages we speak ? It seems intuitive that our ability to conceive of concepts would be dependent on having/creating language that can describe them, even in our own minds, but I have no idea how anyone could really know one way or the other.

As you point out, this is a hard thing to test. Add to this the fact that the question may be a sensitive one, similar to differences between men and women.

How can one go about testing the effect of language on thinking? Consider this example: English has an explicit grammatical structure for counterfactuals (CFs), e.g. "If I were a rich man ..." whereas some languages, e.g. Chinese (Mandarin) do not (they do have some other means but not as overt). One can then think presenting stories containing complex CF situations to native English and Chinese speakers, and somehow test how quickly they grasp them. This exact experiment was performed by Alfred Bloom in 1981 and indeed showed some differences. Later researchers noted some points that might have affected the results. You can see why this research may be sensitive, it may be mistakenly used to argue that Chinese speakers are somehow linguistically deficient.