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Mark Harbinger's avatar

I stand corrected on the Transformer invention date.

Rhetorical Q, though: Were transformers more of an evolution (a difference in degree) or was it an entirely new technology (a difference in kind)? Seems to be the former... (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/story-ai-evolution-before-ml-era-transformers-gpt-3-beyond-ghosh/). The foundations for it were laid by Hinton when both of us were still kids, right?

~~

The cultural transference of language thing is interesting. Although, at first blush, I am not seeing anything in it that precludes there being a UG. More of a belt-and-suspenders thing. Alone, it doesn't seem to explain the robustness of language growth in any given person. Indeed, at least one cultural-based refutation didn't stand up to scrutiny back in the day (https://cognitionandculture.net/wp-content/uploads/nevinsEtAl_07_Piraha-Exce.pdf)

Final thought on Noam: I noticed earlier that you posed Noam as someone who sort of unscientifically dismissed his critics, while simultaneously dinging him for evolving his theories when presented with evidence. Can't have it both ways. ;-)

But, this was a great discussion (at least for me). Thank you!

_Mark

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Mark Harbinger's avatar

I don't disagree with you here (although the date of the citation you mention doesn't predate "the recent advances in AI"...LLMs and transformers go back farther, it's the training based on all the stolen data that is the recent "advance", I think).

And, all of the evolution you mention both in Chomsky's thought and in the critics—those all still exist in Chomsky's sandbox, yes? I mean, NO ONE thinks the infant brain is a tabula rasa, anymore, right?

As an attorney, I am just always sensitive to undermining my own point by using opposing frames. "Functional Competence" (FC) is how the AI/"AGI"-hypesters want to talk about this, because it elevates prep for the job market to the #1 goal of education.

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