Noam Chomsky on AI, ChatGPT, Universal Grammar and Wittgenstein

理论语言学五道口站

2024-09-24

编者按

《理论语言学五道口站》(2024年第20期，总第319期)为大家转载分享一则乔姆斯基教授的访谈。访谈中乔姆斯基教授从人工智能的局限性出发，深入探讨了普遍语法理论以及语言与心智的关系，并就人类思想和语言的本质发表了看法。

Noam Chomsky on AI, ChatGPT, Universal Grammar and Wittgenstein: Unlocking Language & Mind

诺姆·乔姆斯基谈论人工智能、ChatGPT、普遍语法和维特根斯坦：揭示语言与心智

此次讲座主要围绕四个方面进行：

一、人类之间共享语言能力的证据是什么？

二、语言、音乐和算术之间具有哪些相似之处？

三、普遍语法的本质是什么？刺激贫乏论又是什么？

四、乔姆斯基对维特根斯坦、萨皮尔-沃夫假说以及意识问题持有怎样的看法？

1. What is the evidence of a shared capacity for language among humans?

2. What are the similarities between language, music, and arithmetic?

3. What is the nature of Universal Grammar？And what is the poverty of the stimulus?

4. What are Noam Chomsky's views on Wittgenstein, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and the issue of consciousness?

Brief Introduction of Interviewee

采访人物简介

Noam Chomsky

诺姆·乔姆斯基，麻省理工学院荣休教授、亚利桑那大学桂冠教授，享誉世界的著名语言学家、认知科学家、政治批评家、伟大的思想家、哲学家、历史学家，是现代语言学史上被引用最多的学者。自20世纪50年代起，他的研究彻底改变了语言学领域，将语言视为一种人类特有的、基于生物遗传属性的认知能力。他将语法按照生成能力分为0-型语法、1-型语法、2-型语法、3-型语法四种类型，并讨论了不同类型语法之间的层级关系，这被称之为“乔姆斯基等级”。这一理论目前仍是计算机科学中的有机组成部分。通过对语言学和多个相关领域的贡献（包括认知思维科学、形式科学、人脑科学和人工智能等），乔姆斯基引领了一场持续至今的“认知革命”，启发和催生了包括“生物语言学”在内的多个语言学分支学科的产生和发展。乔姆斯基也因此被认为是“第二次认知革命”的代表人物、“语言学界的爱因斯坦”。

Noam Chomsky, an Emeritus professor of MIT and Laureate professor of the University of Arizona, is a distinguished linguist, cognitive scientist, political critic, a great thinker, philosopher, historian and the most cited living scholar in modern linguistic history. His work from the 1950s revolutionized the field of linguistics by regarding language as a kind of human specific, biological genetic properties based cognitive ability. He classified grammars into four types: Type-0 grammars, Type-1 grammars, Type-2 grammars and Type-3 grammars, and specified a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars, which is called the "Chomsky hierarchy". This theory is still an integral part of computer science. Through his contributions to linguistics and related fields, including cognitive science, formal science, brain science and artificial intelligence, Chomsky helped to initiate and sustain what came to be known as the “cognitive revolution”. It inspired and promoted the emergence and development of multiple linguistic branches including Biolinguistics. He is therefore considered as the leading figure of “the Second Cognitive Revolution” and as the ‘Einstein’ in Linguistics.