428
Noam Chomsky, 95, ‘no longer able to talk’ as intellectual’s ‘health deteriorates’
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
428 points (98.2% liked)
Philosophy
1312 readers
1 users here now
Discussion of philosophy
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You know what, I’m going to be patient. Let’s syllogize your argument so everyone can get on the same page, shall we.
This argument is not valid, because it’s missing at least one premise. Once you come up with a valid argument, we can debate its premises. Until then, I can’t actually respond, because you haven’t said anything substantive.
The mainstream opinion in linguistics is that LLM’s are mostly irrelevant. If you believe otherwise — for instance, that LLM’s can offer insight into some abstract UG hypothesis about developmental neurobiology — explain why, and maybe publish your theory for peer review.
You don't need to put project a false argument onto what I was saying.
Chomsky's basic arguments:
1: UG requires understanding the semantic roles of words and phrases to map syntactic structures onto semantic structures.
2: UG posits certain principles of grammar are universal, and that syntactic and semantic representation is required as meaning changes with structure. The result is semantic universals - basic meanings that appear across all languages.
3: Semantic bootstrapping is then invoked to explain where children using their understanding of semantic categorizes to learning syntactic structures of language.
LLM's torpedo all of this as totally unnecessary as fundamental to language acquisition, because they offer at least one example where none of the above need to be invoked. LLM's have no innate understanding of language; its just pattern recognition and association. In UG semantics is intrinsically linked to syntactic structure. In this way, semantics are learned indirectly through exposure, rather than through an innate framework. LLM's show that a UG and all of its complexity is totally unnecessary in at least one case of demonstrated language acquisition. That's huge. Its beyond huge. It gives us a testable, falsifiable path forwards that UG didn't.
Largely, because Chomsky. To invoke Planck's principle: Science advances one funeral at a time. Linguistics will finally be able to evolve past the rut its been in, and we now have real technical tools to do the kind of testable, reproducible, quantitative analysis at scale. We're going to see more change in what we understand about language over the next five years than we've learned in the previous fifty. We didn't have anything other than baby humans prior to now to study the properties of language acquisition. Language acquisition in humans is now a subset of the domain because we can actually talk about and study language acquisition outside of the context of humans. In a few more years, linguistics won't look at-all like it did 4 years ago. If departments don't adapt to this new paradigm, they'll become like all those now laughable geography departments that didn't adapt to the satellite revolution of the 1970s. Funny little backwaters of outdated modes of thinking the world has passed by. LLM's for the study of language acquisition is like the invention of the microscope, and Chomsky completely missed the boat because it wasn't his boat.
Your conclusion (which I assume is implied, since you didn’t bother to write it anywhere) might be something like,
My issue is that I just don’t see how to draw this conclusion from your premises. If you were to reformulate your premises into a valid argument structure, we can discuss them and find some common ground.
You haven't demonstrated that you have any real comprehension of the domain, or that you bring anything interesting enough to this conversation to warrant furtherance.
Harsh words for someone who can’t even state a valid argument. I mean do you expect me to guess how your conclusion comes from your unrelated premises?
I've been both cogent and clear as to what my points are, and you've made none. You are a joke if you think yourself an intellectual.
You cogently failed to produce a valid argument. I can’t even engage with your claims because they are unrelated to your conclusion.
The saddest thing about your responses, in spite of their multiple edits, is that you think you are actually serious in whatever it is you think you are doing.
Its disappointing because you can't actually do this thing which you wish you were capable of. You can only imitate it, and in doing so, you mock both yourself and the thing you appear to revere so much.
You could just actually engage with the points being made, but I think we both know you aren't capable. So you resort to self-fellatio. And its sad, because its not just you, but an entire generation of pseudo-intellectuals who almost know how to have a complex discussion on difficult topics. But when your favorite comic book hero gets called out for pushing a unfalsifiable theory, that basically held the field captive for 50 years, you get all tied up in knots. Its because you aren't actually engaging with the material intellectually, but emotionally.
I’m not sure how I confused you so much, or why you would find the request for a syllogized version of your sweeping theoretical claim surprising.
There is nothing confusing about someone as simple as you. You don't understand Chomsky, you don't understand LLM's, and you don't even really understand the conversation we're having now. You don't engage with the points people are actually making, just the ones you wish they made.
You're just a sad little jack off.
"this thread is a wild fucking ride"
-chompsky deepfake
"I smoke two joints after I smoke two joints, and then I smoke two more"
-gnome chimpskie
Premise 1 (UG): Human languages share an underlying structure.
Premise 2: LLM's can be trained to use human languages without the need for any underlying structure. Such an underlying structure is unnecessary for language acquisition.
Therefore, (UG) is false.
Not bad for a first attempt. Unfortunately, the argument above is assuming the consequent. Just because it is not necessary for something to be true, doesn't mean it isn't.
Let's try again.
Premise 1 (UG): Human languages share an underlying structure.
Premise 2: LLM's can be trained to use human languages without the need for any underlying structure. Such an underlying structure is unnecessary for language acquisition.
Premise 3: Human minds and brains operate in a manner relevantly similar to LLM's, at least when it comes to language acquisition.
Therefore, (UG) is false.
This argument is (almost) valid.
Of course, I would push back on both premise 2 and premise 3, which are difficult to believe and would require a lot of empirical evidence, but at least we’re clear about our claims.
The only thing that's clear about this conversation is that you engaged on a topic you know almost nothing about beyond some cursory googling. Go actually read Chomsky on this. Then read the follow ups. Then read Elman, and Fisher, and Vernes. I'd say to also read Sampson but he's a racist fuck nugget, so fuck that guy.
You should actually read Chomsky before commenting any further, because its very very clear you haven't. UG as a theory is relegated to pseudoscience, and Chomsky did a disservice to the entire field pushing theory that had been demonstrated to be false, repeatedly. Even that NYT op-ed was the same pushing of his wrong theories, which were baseless. His preeminence in the field prevented forced research into an unfounded and wrong direction for five decades.
That doesn’t sound like “thank you.” Regardless, feel free to adopt some version of the syllogism above, so that you can have more honest conversations with people in the future. Clarity is important if you’re interested in getting to the truth. It’s a shame we wasted so much time and now can no longer debate the actual premises of your dumb argument. That’s the fun part, after all.
Like I said, the only thing clear in this conversation is that you know actually nothing about anything in it. You don't know what Chomsky is saying because you haven't read him. You are stuck in this weird little self sucking loop where you think you are making a point, but you aren't. You don't know Chomsky, you don't know language, language theory, or computer science. You should just be apologizing for your ignorance and saying that you'll do the work to be taken seriously next time.
The only thing here that's a shame is you.
Your responses are so unhinged. Is your ego that fragile? What’s the point? Why not just learn from your mistake and do better next time?