zlacker

>>mef+(OP)
I confess my opinion of Noam Chomsky dropped a lot from reading this interview. The way he set up a "Tom Jones" strawman and kept dismissing positions using language like "we'd laugh", "total absurdity", etc. was really disappointing. I always assumed that academics were only like that on reddit, and in real life they actually made a serious effort at rigorous argument, avoiding logical fallacies and the like. Yet here is Chomsky addressing a lay audience that has no linguistics background, and instead of even attempting to summarize the arguments for his position, he simply asserts that opposing views are risible with little supporting argument. I expected much more from a big-name scholar.

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

>>0xDEAF+g6
There's a reason Max Planck said science advances one funeral at a time. Researches spend their lives developing and promoting the ideas they cut their teeth on (or in this case developed himself) and their view of what is possible becomes ossified around these foundational beliefs. Expecting him to be flexible enough in his advanced age to view LLMs with a fresh perspective, rather than strongly informed by his core theoretical views is expecting too much.