I've been in machine learning/AI for ten years now - from undergraduate research, to graduate school, to industry - and I find debate like this fascinating. My take on it is that our understanding of what we will be able to do in the future is very unclear, and what we will want to do is very open-ended. So the debate is worth having, but it won't really resolve anything.
Statistical models may (in my opinion probably will) end up being an "AI" dead-end, eventually falling into other fields such as algorithms, like game trees and logic-based agents did. That's not to say the current statistical approach is a bad idea; on the contrary, I think these techniques are useful and simple enough that they will become fairly ubiquitous in CS.
On the Chomsky side of the argument, AI researchers have consistently been frustrated in the past 50 years, to the point that studying AI today makes you sound like a joke. But their goal is a noble one. Anyone can understand how great it would be to have a human-level intelligence on a chip - this would fundamentally change the World. The fact that we haven't dented this problem doesn't mean the problem isn't worth solving, it just means our understanding of what it takes to build this kind of AI is in its infancy.
I almost feel like Norvig and Chomsky are arguing in parallel. They are both right, but their arguments are valid on different time scales. Today, the Norvig approach will easily win out; Chomsky has nothing and is largely irrelevant. But Chomsky is, IMO, correctly predicting what will need to happen to move beyond an eventual roadblock in a much grander AI.
Statistical models may (in my opinion probably will) end up being an "AI" dead-end, eventually falling into other fields such as algorithms, like game trees and logic-based agents did. That's not to say the current statistical approach is a bad idea; on the contrary, I think these techniques are useful and simple enough that they will become fairly ubiquitous in CS.
On the Chomsky side of the argument, AI researchers have consistently been frustrated in the past 50 years, to the point that studying AI today makes you sound like a joke. But their goal is a noble one. Anyone can understand how great it would be to have a human-level intelligence on a chip - this would fundamentally change the World. The fact that we haven't dented this problem doesn't mean the problem isn't worth solving, it just means our understanding of what it takes to build this kind of AI is in its infancy.
I almost feel like Norvig and Chomsky are arguing in parallel. They are both right, but their arguments are valid on different time scales. Today, the Norvig approach will easily win out; Chomsky has nothing and is largely irrelevant. But Chomsky is, IMO, correctly predicting what will need to happen to move beyond an eventual roadblock in a much grander AI.