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Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

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Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#92
post #83

The field is now called AGI. It isn't mentioned in this article. Everyone seems to be ignoring the whole field of AGI (artificial general intelligence). Or maybe they truly are ignorant of it. Anyway, suffice to say, AI and AGI didn't stop progressing, and Chomsky is no longer any sort of expert in those fields. Even Norvig isn't up to speed on the most advanced approaches to AGI, but at least he enters the same room…

> The field is now called AGI. No it's not.

Could you please stop doing that! If you don't know anything don't say anything. If you know that it truly isn't AGI (as you may do) say why!

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#93
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking if I believe in qualia, and the answer is no. There are firing neurons and that's it. The great variety of ways in which neurons can fire, and the great variety of experiences that shape how neurons fire combine to form an exquisite set of possible firing patterns (this is literally what makes me me and you you) but ultimately, to mis-use Gertrude Stein's famous phrase, 'there is no there there.'

It wasn't at all clear that that is what he was asking you. And you need to qualify the sense in which you "don't believe" in qualia. You don't believe that consciousness has phenomenal properties? Qualia certainly exist in some sense. From what it sounds like, you are just dismissing compelling philosophical issues because it frustrates your beliefs.

> Qualia certainly exist in some sense.

As an epiphenomenon of neural firings? Or is saying that 'not allowed' somehow?

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#94
post #83

The field is now called AGI. It isn't mentioned in this article. Everyone seems to be ignoring the whole field of AGI (artificial general intelligence). Or maybe they truly are ignorant of it. Anyway, suffice to say, AI and AGI didn't stop progressing, and Chomsky is no longer any sort of expert in those fields. Even Norvig isn't up to speed on the most advanced approaches to AGI, but at least he enters the same room…

> The field is now called AGI. No it's not.

What they are talking about is the idea of human-like general intelligence, and AI mostly doesn't try to do that anymore, although there are some people who are seriously trying and calling it AI and even a few who are sort of aware of what the AGI people are doing or have projects that are as sophisticated. But most of the researchers who are farthest along and most serious about it have been calling it AGI.

Anyway, you have to at least include AGI if you are serious about human-like AIs.

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#95
post #16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I agree with you. Chomsky is astoundingly intelligent and (I think) I understand what he is getting at (i.e. develop a theory of how something happens and use it to find evidence that supports or refutes that theory, rather than using statistical methods to develop a predictive model that doesn't teach you anything about the underlying system), but you can't but feel a sense of "yeah, but how?" You can hardly…

I am not well acquainted with Noam Chomsky and his work, but the dichotomy you refer to I'd like to call "design vs evolution". If the extreme "design" part the spectrum is what Chomsky talks about: "develop a theory of how something happens and use it to find evidence that supports or refutes that theory", then the extreme end of the "evolution" part of the spectrum must be this: Choose a set of rules, use genetic p…

See also the story of the MIT magic switch that toggled between Magic and More Magic, required to make a certain machine function, with no wires behind the switch.

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#96
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The field is now called AGI. No it's not.

Could you please stop doing that! If you don't know anything don't say anything. If you know that it truly isn't AGI (as you may do) say why!

AI has forever been filled with buzzwords and trendy absurdity. Most of this lies on the soft computing end of the field, where self-styled visionaries hold forth with holistic mumbo-jumbo while valuable work is done by reputable researchers elsewhere.

AGI is one of those little goofy microtrends: so far as I can tell it's essentially a rebranding of Strong AI by soft computing reactionaries responding to AI getting dominated by domain specificity (otherwise known as "being successful"). To claim, as the grandparent appears to be doing, that AI is now properly called Artificial General Intelligence, is crackpottery at its finest.

Wake me up when AGI even appears on the first results page of a Google search for "AGI".

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#97
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky is agreeing that it's making a map. He just doesn't think that map is very useful on a scientific level, but is useful on an engineering level. You're responding that he's wrong, because it's useful on an engineering level. Right? I'm reading many comments here and they seem to keep boiling down to this notion. Am I wrong?

At the top level, I think this captures it. If, like Chomsky, you value having a model of the underlying cognition process rather than a set of black-box predictors for aspects of that problem (e.g., various corpus-driven translators), then you might be really annoyed that the black-box people are so satisfied with their results.

The Church was angry that the sun didn't revolve around the Earth. We don't get to pick the prettiest models. Right makes right.

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#98
Like maybe when you add 7 and 6, let's say, one algorithm is to say "I'll see how much it takes to get to 10" -- it takes 3, and now I've got 4 left, so I gotta go from 10 and add 4, I get 14. That's an algorithm for adding -- it's actually one I was taught in kindergarten. That's one way to add.

I get 13.

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#99
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky's work has been cited by many papers in both fields.

Being cited doesn't mean he has something specific to say about those fields. He's an influential scientist so people may cite him when they found something vaguely related to his theories, to make their findings seem more important.

Ironically, here you are decrying a statistical model of impact factor and yearning for a higher level model of meaning in research.

Re: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong

#100
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please stop doing that! If you don't know anything don't say anything. If you know that it truly isn't AGI (as you may do) say why!

AI has forever been filled with buzzwords and trendy absurdity. Most of this lies on the soft computing end of the field, where self-styled visionaries hold forth with holistic mumbo-jumbo while valuable work is done by reputable researchers elsewhere. AGI is one of those little goofy microtrends: so far as I can tell it's essentially a rebranding of Strong AI by soft computing reactionaries responding to AI getting…

I'm talking about the efforts to really reproduce human-like intelligence. I'm not saying that AI isn't a field, I am saying if you want human-like intelligence, the AGI people are the most far along, or at least the most serious about it.

Did you really look into AGI, for example the past conferences or those projects, and conclude that it is just invaluable holistic mumbo-jumbo?

That is so unfair and inaccurate, I can't see how you can possibly be evaluating things rationally if you really came to that conclusion.

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