Gary Marcus fires back at Noah Smith: AI's math leap vindicated my neurosymbolic advocacy
GaryMarcus · x · 2026-10-10
Gary Marcus responds to Noah Smith's jab that he spent his career denying the AI revolution. Marcus admits he (arguably) got the timing on LLM math wrong but calls Smith intellectually dishonest:
- Pure LLMs vs LLMs with neurosymbolic harnesses (code interpreters, verifiers) are fundamentally different things critics conflate.
- His 30-year career thesis was advocating neurosymbolic hybrids, mostly against hostility from the field.
- The great leap in math came precisely from adding neurosymbolic components to neural networks—vindicating his central claim.
- Citing Terence Tao: world-class mathematicians can still do things like invent new principles and write clear proofs that AI can't.
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