Verbal behaviorNoam Chomsky
Verbal behavior
by Noam Chomsky · first published 1959
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Fair enough, but my point was just that the title here might mislead people if (like me) they were already familiar with the legend of "Chomsky's review of Verbal Behavior." I went to the article expecting it to be a cultural history of that review. (You know the sort of thing I mean: one of these now popular histories that starts from something very specific - a product,…
on “It got eaten” ↗…Skinner was much more established in his respective field at that time, which is why Skinner made the mistake of ignoring the review. Skinner didn't believe Chomsky, or linguists generally, understood Verbal Behavior, which further encouraged him to ignore the review. At the end of the day, you can't have a real debate between two views unless both views are properly understood. Useful reference: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223959896_Skinner_a...
on “The Engineered Student: On B. F. Skinner’s Teaching Machine” ↗> The undoing of Skinner's grip on psychology is commonly marked by Chomsky's 1959 critical review of Skinner's book Verbal Behavior, a book in which Skinner attempted to explain linguistic ability using behaviorist principles. This article is from 2012. In the 10 years since, we've shown that reward maximization can lead to unexpectedly…
on “Noam Chomsky: Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong (2012)” ↗…http://norvig.com/chomsky.html Second: I found it astounding that the article never mentions Skinner. Surely this article is trying to do to Chomsky what Chomsky did to Skinner in 1959 ("A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior", http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htm ). Chomsky basically marked the beginning of modern era of cognitive psychology with that essay, displaing the previous paradigm of behaviorism. Norvig's…
on “Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI” ↗Chomsky's famous review of Verbal Behavior was from 1959. He REISSUED it in 1967, as the document the article links to plainly and clearly states. Geez, this is a pretty stupid mistake for Katz and The Atlantic to make. They should fix it.
on “Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong” ↗…linguist and I don't know much about his works, except formal grammars and such and I know that he has some strong political views, although I cannot really describe them. When Skinner published his book "Verbal Behavior", Chomsky wrote a very critical review of it. The review became very popular, more than the book itself. Skinner never replied (he rarely did). My understanding is that this was one of major blows against…
on “On Chomsky's Review of Skinner's “Verbal Behavior” (1970) [pdf]” ↗…gotta hate all forms of reinforcement learning successes. After all, what else are those if not the proof that his arch enemy BF Skinner was right. Chomsky came to fame by criticizing Skinner’s book “Verbal behavior“, arguing, there was more to language and intelligence than statistics. Now here we are, 30 years after Skinner’s death, and the closest thing we have to general artificial intelligence is based exactly…
on “Debunking Statistical AI – Noam Chomsky, Gary Marcus, Jeremy Kahn [video]” ↗Sounds a bit like Chomsky’s critique of Skinners “Verbal Behavior”, which kind of put him on the map back in the 60s. Though Skinner gave us teaching machines, ping pong playing pigeons, clicker training and, indirectly, ChatGPT.
on “Large language models are poor theories of human linguistic cognition” ↗…Skinner in the 1960s. Back then, it put him on the map, and he lives in the illusion that he was right. Now ChatGPT is pretty much Skinner’s work come to life. The BFS book Chomsky critiqued was literally “Verbal Behavior” - a book about how intelligence arises from “dumb” reinforcement learning of words. Obviously Chomsky must now claim that ChatGPT only pretends to be intelligent. Else his entire life’s work is proven…
on “Just Calm Down About GPT-4 Already” ↗BF Skinner, “Verbal Behavior”. Critiquing that book is what put Chomsky on the map.
on “Just Calm Down About GPT-4 Already” ↗Chomsky, of all people? Chomsky rose to fame by attacking BF Skinner’s book “Verbal Behavior”. Which is the book that made exactly the case you’re making now, only some 60 years ago. Skinner would marvel at today’s LLMs. They are the most elegant proof that intelligence is not just shaped by…
on “Here comes the Muybridge camera moment but for text” ↗He has discussed this in recent interviews and talks e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/noam-chomsky-chat... > his critique of BF Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior” had been wrong after all btw, this is in no way proven (or true imo).
on “We Remember Noam Chomsky, the Intellectual and Moral Giant” ↗Skinner's book Verbal Behavior was mostly unsatisfying because it didn't have a lot of data; it really just laid out a research program which had not been carried out in any significant way (and now, never will be). Of course it is…
on “Norvig vs. Chomsky and the Fight for the Future of AI” ↗The lit crit community were into function, NC was all structure. Skinner was way ahead of them, and his time with his book Verbal Behavior. Language is a behavior guided by no special processes relative to other human behavior
on “Noam Chomsky – The Function of Language [2018?]” ↗…pigeons pecking at levers in return for food, etc. etc. Of course these laws had nothing interesting to say about language acquisition. I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to actually try reading Verbal Behavior. It's an incredibly turgid and uninsightful book.
on “Just Calm Down About GPT-4 Already” ↗