From Wittgenstein to AI: The 60-Year Cycle of Abandoning Hidden Structures
adityaag · x · 2026-08-10
The author draws an insightful parallel between philosophy and AI. Wittgenstein initially believed language possessed a deep underlying logical structure, only to reverse himself 30 years later by focusing on how language is actually used. Similarly, AI in the 1960s sought deep symbolic structures for intelligence, while 60 years later, the prevailing approach is simply to scale neural networks. Both fields underwent a paradigm shift from seeking intrinsic structures to embracing emergent behaviors.
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