[Dprglist] AI in natural language, self-driving cars, etc.

[ed at okerson.com]

David,

Not at all, I am always amazed that we communicate as well as we do, 
even with all the flaws in language. But I still don't think that 
demonstrates mastery.

I agree that it is much easier when young. I was always dumbfounded when 
I saw a child in Japan that could switch between English and Japanese 
depending on who they were speaking to. Perhaps we should start letting 
children program the AI's?

Ed

On 2022-10-16 17:21, David P. Anderson wrote:
> Ed,
> 
> I guess we'll just have to disagree (not for the first time!) on the
> definition of "mastery."
> 
> I agree that learning a foreign language is difficult as an adult.  
> In the middle ages the common wisdom was that learning to read and
> write were so difficult that ONLY an adult could accomplish it.  Turns
> out they were wrong, and the difficulty was BECAUSE they were trying
> to learn it as adults.   Same thing with learning a foreign language
> as an adult.
> 
> In one of my college psych courses we learned that humans learn the
> concept of symbolism, this stands for that, somewhere between 2 and 3
> years old.  Language is an extension of that ability to symbolize.  I
> believe the author was observing the lack of that mechanism in current
> AIs.
> 
> So ultimately this may be a glass-half-empty-half-full sort of
> thing.   Some might think language flawed because of a lack of perfect
> communication.  Other's might be blown away that we can do it at
> all.   I tend to fall into the latter group.  Seems like you are
> perhaps in the former.
> 
> cheers!
> 
> dpa
> 
> 
> On 10/16/22 5:00 PM, ed at okerson.com wrote:
>> [EXTERNAL SENDER]
>> 
>> Hey David,
>> 
>> Do most of us really ever master it? As my father always says, 
>> "English is the only foreign language I know". Having lived in other 
>> countries, namely Japan and Finland, I can tell you mastering another 
>> language is anything but easy. As no human language is the natural 
>> language of silicon based AI, I can imagine the difficulty it has. I 
>> still assert that most humans have not really "mastered" any language. 
>> They may have learned enough to get by, but that is far from mastery.
>> 
>> Ed
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 2022-10-16 16:31, David P. Anderson wrote:
>>> Hey Ed!
>>> 
>>> Why do you say language is hard for meat based intelligence? Most of
>>> us master it by 4 or 5.   On our own!
>>> 
>>> Almost like it's "built into" the system.   (see Chomsky, Noam).
>>> 
>>> cheers!
>>> 
>>> dpa
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 10/16/22 4:14 PM, ed at okerson.com wrote:
>>>> [EXTERNAL SENDER]
>>>> 
>>>> Language is difficult for Meat based Intelligence, why wouldn't it 
>>>> be hard for Silicon based Intelligence?
>>>> 
>>>> From the article "In spite of these AI systems being dumb, as you 
>>>> put it, people are often fooled into thinking that they’re smart."
>>>> 
>>>> Yet another similarity to Meat based "Intelligence"? Hmmm?
>>>> 
>>>> Ed
>>>> 
>>>> On 2022-10-16 16:02, David P. Anderson via DPRGlist wrote:
>>>>> Interesting take:
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://undark.org/2022/10/07/interview-why-mastering-language-is-so-difficult-for-ai/ 
>>>>> dpa
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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