So Hinton is taking exactly 1 component of the *potential* frameworks of human understanding, & claiming that 1) that is all of human understanding, 2) that generative "AI" understands in exactly the same way, & thus 3) that generative "AI" understands like humans.
Honestly that's just bad logic.
A perfect exhibition of why computer scientists should shut the absolute fuck up about any other science.
This is like a freshmen psych student's understanding of cognition.
I think that's how he likes to portray himself, but he's credentialed as a computer scientist, he publishes in CS conferences, worked in a CS department, works for a big tech company, and is primarily cited in CS work.
I've also never heard a cognitive scientist say his name without exasperation
Computer scientist here. You're 100% correct. All of Hinton's serious work (some of it quite interesting and important) is in computer science, which is basically applied mathematics in a hat and trenchcoat.
A cognitive scientist he ain't.
BTW, I now work on problems in cancer research for a living, which has given me a profound respect for the difficulty of other sciences in general and human biology in particular.
I get your point, but, his speciality in CompSci has always been an aspect of CogSci. Cognitive *psychologist* he aint, but cognitive scientist, sure, unfortunately
I get what you’re saying but I’d still push back on that. He doesn’t publish science in cognitive science fields, therefore he is not a cognitive scientist of any stripe.
He doesn’t study brains, cognition, neurons, etc. He studies big non-linear function generators.
He’s a cognitive scientist only in the way that pop-sci publications will ask him questions wildly outside of his knowledge base and he’ll happily just start saying some shit that sounds smart.
IRL, I've only ever heard one person rather timidly ask whether Hinton might have a point and that person rapidly backtracked when enlightened. I wish credulous journalists would stop giving him the time of day. He is a serious danger to public understanding of computing.
