Comment by xpe

Do these three points fairly characterize Marcus? Have I left out other key claims he makes?

1. AI is overvalued;

2. {Many/most/all} AI companies have AI products that don't do what they claim;*

3. AI as a technology is running out of steam;

I'm no fan of Marcus, but I at least want to state his claims as accurately as I can.

To be open, one of my concerns with Marcus he rants a lot. I find it tiresome (I go into more detail in other comments I've made recently.)

So I'll frame it as two questions. First, does Marcus make clear logical arguments? By this I mean does he lay out the premises and the conclusions? Second, independent of the logical (or fallacious) structure of his writing, are Gary Marcus' claims sufficiently clear? Falsifiable? Testable?

Here are some follow-up questions I would put to Marcus, if he's reading this. These correspond to the three points above.

1. How much are AI companies overvalued, if at all, and when will such a "correction" happen?

2. What % of AI companies have products that don't meet their claims. How does such a percentage compare against non-AI companies?

3. What does "running out of steam" mean? What areas of research are doing to hit dead ends? Why? When? Does Marcus carve out exceptions?

Finally, can we disprove anything that Marcus would claim. For example, what would he say, hypothetically speaking, if a future wave of AI technologies make great progress? Would he criticize them as "running out of steam as well?" If he does, isn't he selectively paying attention to the later part of the innovation S-curve while ignoring the beginning?

* You tell me, I haven't yet figured out what he is actually claiming. To be fair, I've been turned off by his writing for a while. Now, I spend much more time reading more thoughtful writers.