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> I think the position that natural language will just take care of itself is just a touch hand-wavey. Why not? It's done just that for countless millenia. Cav
by selestify 5y ago
> I think the position that natural language will just take care of itself is just a touch hand-wavey.
Why not? It's done just that for countless millenia. Cavemen without Ph.D.'s in linguistics managed to develop languages for communication just fine.
Now, they could be further optimized, sure. But the default of taking no conscious action at all has historically worked out just fine for linguistic evolution.
- Stupulous 5y agoIn the last half of the last millenium, we achieved widespread literacy, invented the printing press, made publishing available to the public, and invented the internet. I don't think we can assume the process that worked before this tech will definitely work now.
- Stupulous 5y agoOn reflection, I'd like to retract this. I was reading quickly and didn't understand what I was replying to. It is not my belief that, left to its own devices, natural language will become unusable. It is probably true that we can get away with letting nature run its course. I do object to using this as an argument for avoiding optimization, but I don't think I'm in disagreement with the parent there. Apologies for my error.