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1970s AI bros (incl McCarthy) whining about the inventor of ELIZA telling them to gfy (dl.acm.org)
submitted 1 year ago by [M] to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

It's sarcasm. The question asks for unwarranted precision and the response is a joke.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Imagining a guy who asks me a dumb question so I can let everyone know how I'd mock them with a joke answer.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    “Pray tell mr Babbage..”

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Spot on, yeah. Although as pointed out just above, this wasn't actually Weizenbaum's position. But in an era of letters to the editor, perhaps using a little rhetorical trickery to preempt a two-month-long back and forth might be excusable. It's a strawman nonetheless; but this letter is a screed.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I suspect he got asked it a lot. There was a lot of interesting work going on back then but people basically didn't have any notion that there was a path from there to any kind of AGI. (In that respect they might've been somewhat more clued up than Altman.)

    I think it's a natural thing to preemptively defend against the obvious counterpoint when you're railing against the thesis that current AI work isn't going to deliver on the "I".

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