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This smells like ego to me. He said "you can't have X without Y, it's impossible" and then we got something that kind of has X without Y. Rather than consider t
by bastawhiz 3y ago
This smells like ego to me. He said "you can't have X without Y, it's impossible" and then we got something that kind of has X without Y. Rather than consider that his ideas may be flawed, he's doubling down. And his new statements will almost certainly be proven false when ML research progresses in another five years and machines can learn at a rate that matches or exceeds human children. I'm not the smartest guy, but I know enough to never bet against future technological progress.
Is there any empirical evidence that Chomsky's ideas are correct? Or is he setting himself up for embarrassment?
- foobarqux 3y agoYes there is lots of empirical evidence, children acquire language with very little data, all languages are structured in basically the same hierarchical way, etc. You can try reading what he's written.
- jemmyw 3y agoHumans do take quite a long time to learn though, so maybe the data is sparse but still substantial.
- foobarqux 3y agoThe amount of data that humans are exposed to isn't enough to rule out lots of candidate grammars yet humans land on specific types of grammars. Also, infants acquire some elements of language extremely rapidly.
- AndyNemmity 3y agoYou didn't understand what he said. The topic is on universal grammar as a way humans learn language. He is saying that LLMs tell you nothing about how humans learn language, and he is correct. It tells you as much as a submarine tells you about humans swim. It doesn't.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jemmyw 3y agoI don't really understand why they quote was posted then. In the context of the discussion do we care that LLMs might not (I'm not qualified to say do not) tell you about how humans learn language? From the perspective of intelligence though they're certainly doing more with language and "thinking" than a two year old.