Aiming to support the parent's claim (ElDiablo66, is this what you're referring to?), here's a quote from an article [1] about the Chomsky vs. Norvig debate a couple years ago:
Chomsky critiqued the field of AI for adopting an approach reminiscent of behaviorism, except in more modern, computationally sophisticated form. Chomsky argued that the field's heavy use of statistical techniques to pick regularities in masses of data is unlikely to yield the explanatory insight that science ought to offer. For Chomsky, the "new AI" -- focused on using statistical learning techniques to better mine and predict data -- is unlikely to yield general principles about the nature of intelligent beings or about cognition.
Who said anything about thinking, and how do you know it's hard?
EDIT: I'm getting downvoted, but your statement is incredibly vague and I believe wrong. "Big Data" might be overused as a buzzword, but it's not a "nonsense concept". "Thinking is hard", I assume you are talking about strong AI, and it's not related to this at all. Saying it's "hard" adds nothing of value, and we don't even know if it's true (in the sense that when someone does figure it out, it might seem simple and obvious in retrospect.)
Downvoted for mentioning downvoting but totally agree.
I see no connection between big data and AI. Like everything you can of course apply AI to it but I think step one is getting the analytic side down pat.
And also agree thinking may not be hard. It is hard to create a thinking machine (Other than using DNA) but I don't necessary think there is anything special to it actually thinking.
I'd be disappointed if Chomsky actually thought this way, would need context.
>Saying it's "hard" adds nothing of value, and we don't even know if it's true (in the sense that when someone does figure it out, it might seem simple and obvious in retrospect.)
If it takes decades of hard working geniuses to figure it out, then even if "it seems simple and obvious in retrospect", it IS hard.
Chomsky critiqued the field of AI for adopting an approach reminiscent of behaviorism, except in more modern, computationally sophisticated form. Chomsky argued that the field's heavy use of statistical techniques to pick regularities in masses of data is unlikely to yield the explanatory insight that science ought to offer. For Chomsky, the "new AI" -- focused on using statistical learning techniques to better mine and predict data -- is unlikely to yield general principles about the nature of intelligent beings or about cognition.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/noam-c...
[2] HN thread on [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4729068