I feel like Chomsky's argument is being mischaracterized a little here. I don't think Chomsky is necessarily looking for 'simple' rules, but he wants models tha

I feel like Chomsky's argument is being mischaracterized a little here. I don't think Chomsky is necessarily looking for 'simple' rules, but he wants models that explain. Norvig is looking at statistical models that can predict what is going to happen, but don't explain why. I think Chomsky is bringing up a good point here, but he is also being a little hard on people analyzing the data. We are gathering more data now than ever before, it's impossible to carefully analyze every piece of it to understand exactly why things happen how they do. We can use data and statistical models to predict stuff, so they are useful for the short term. I think in the long term, analyzing this data will give leads at where to look for understanding.