<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-1fd91bb8-7fff-c08d-b598-830be8b65f91"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear Randy, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 9pt; margin-bottom: 9pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hassabis is trying to crack the code of the universe. You’re countering that with two Chinese sentences — one in active voice and one in passive voice. That’s not just a different scale, it’s a different galaxy.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 9pt; margin-bottom: 9pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And if linguists know ChatGPT works without semantics, why keep testing its semantic competence? Hassabis talks about simulating reality; you talk about communication. Again — two entirely different things.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 9pt; margin-bottom: 9pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes our field slips into the “nobody can tell me something significant about language” stance. But if we want to think like scientists, the first step is simple: watch the interview. Then decide whether there’s something worth learning — or not.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 9pt; margin-bottom: 9pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Best, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 9pt; margin-bottom: 9pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stela</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>On 08.08.2025, at 11:58, randylapolla via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Hi All, <div>The problem with AI is exactly that the people doing it do not understand communication. LLM’s are simply statistical probability machines, called Artificial Narrow Intelligence. They work on inductive inference. But human cognition and communication relies mainly on abductive inference, and that is what computers will need to do for Artificial General Intelligence to be achieved. As yet they cannot achieve that, and most people in the field don’t even know that it is what is necessary. I’ll attach some slides from a talk I gave last November that contrasts ANI and AGI and talks about the relevance of different types of inference. At the same time, both ANI and AGI are dangerous, and I discuss that aspect as well.</div><div><br></div><div>Randy</div><div><br></div><div></div></div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage"><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On 7 Aug 2025, at 4:11 PM, Stela MANOVA via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><br><div>
<meta charset="UTF-8"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div><div style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear Colleagues, </span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would like to draw your attention to an interview with Demis Hassabis, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(19, 19, 19); font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CEO of Google DeepMind and </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The interview is featured on Lex Fridman’s podcast and is titled </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Future of AI, Simulating Reality, Physics and Video Games”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, available here:</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HzgcbRXUK8&t=860s" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HzgcbRXUK8&t=860s</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although the conversation does not focus specifically on language, it offers valuable insights into large language models (LLMs), particularly how they can model language without possessing linguistic competence—relying instead on patterns derived from observation.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notably, many computer scientists consider LLMs to represent the first and most accessible step toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).</span></p><div style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Best regards, </span></div><div style="line-height: 1.2; text-align: justify; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stela Manova, PI Gauss:AI Global</span></div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div><span id="cid:2BDDA387-0F0C-485D-8519-B8CE2D7725DF"><smime.p7s></span><span id="cid:153FF02B-59DA-4686-8439-531DE03A02C8"><LaPolla-ANI vs AGI.pptx></span>_______________________________________________<br>Lingtyp mailing list<br>Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp<br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>