Importantly, progress in these critical cognitive prerequisites may position AI to be a 
self-sufficient learner, like a bright school child—but they cannot in themselves provide 
a guarantee of yielding a complete cognitive being.  That said, they might lead to self-
teaching machines that are in some ways like a child, with an incomplete understanding 
of the world but a powerful talent for acquiring new ideas.  It's surely just a start, but it 
will make what has come far seem like mere prelude, to something new that we can’t 
yet fully envision.  

 

 

54  

THE NEXT DECADE IN AI / GARY MARCUS 

4. Acknowledgements 

In memory of Jacques Mehler, 1936- 2020, scientist, founder of the journal Cognition, and 
great champion of the sort of interdisciplinary cognitive science that we need to take AI 
to the next level.
The Next Decade in AI-