Witgenstein's influence on artificial intelligence
This is an incremental analysis connecting historical philosophy to modern AI, primarily of interest to researchers in philosophy of AI and NLP.
The paper investigates the extent to which contemporary AI and NLP progress can be linked to Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical ideas, particularly his later work, while also surveying the field's current state and limitations.
We examine how much of the contemporary progress in artificial intelligence (and, specifically, in natural language processing), can be, more or less directly, traced back to the seminal work and ideas of the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, with particular focus on his late views. Discussing Wittgenstein's original theses will give us the chance to survey the state of artificial intelligence, and comment on both its strengths and weaknesses. A similar text appeared first in Spanish as a chapter of CENTENARIO DEL SILENCIO (2021), a book celebrating 100 years since the publication of the Tractatus.