The False Promise of Chomskyism
Scott mischaracterises the reasons, which concern capacities of the system <i>not</i> properties of its output.<p>(1) It lacks the capacity to interpret sentences. It&#x27;s <i>output</i> possess the property of seeming-to-have-interpreted.<p>(2) It lacks the capacity to learn. Learning is, in part, explaining; it is, in part, causal contact with an environment. It&#x27;s output has the property of seeming-to-be-generated-by-a-learner.<p>(3) It lacks the capacity to speak either truthfully or otherwise. Lacking the capacity to explain, because at least it lacks the capacity to imagine (counterfactuals), it cannot thereby determine whether a claim accords with the way the world is. It&#x27;s output has the property: seeming-to-be-true.<p>(4) It lacks the capacity to be moral. For all the above, and more: it lacks the capacity to <i>care</i>. It&#x27;s output has the property: seeming-to-take-moral-stands.<p>The &quot;Jesuit&quot; here, I fear, is the AI fanatic who have turned their telescopes away from reality (intelligence as it actually exists), and have stolen the lenses to read scripture (intelligence as theorised by partisan academics).<p>One has to agree with Chomsky here at the end, &quot;given the amorality, faux science and linguistic incompetence of these systems, we can only laugh or cry at their popularity.&quot;<p>The morality point I think should hit home most extremely: how horrifying to treat generated text output as-if it were constructed by an agent who <i>cares</i>.<p>Apparent properties of the output are <i>not</i> properties of the system; ChatGPT does not think, know, care, intend, speak, commnuicate, etc.<p>One can only &quot;laugh or cry&quot; at how absurd this sales pitch: what a horror to be invited to treat ChatGPT as possessing any of these capacities, simply because correlations across a whole internet of text seems to.