The bottom line here is that Schank (and Brooks and Norvig) has vastly more experience, and celebrated achievements, in trying to build a general A.I. Schank tried to summarize what he has learned about what sort of rates of progress we can reasonably expect, and of course he finds it hard to articulate precisely the reasons for those judgments. Because Schank admits to being too optimistic in his youth, Eliezer feels free to dismiss Schank’s judgment as “sloppy futurism”, and so worth far less weight than his own analysis. If we think we know why Schank would dismiss Eliezer’s judgement here, we have a good disagreement case study here to consider.
The bottom line here is that Schank (and Brooks and Norvig) has vastly more experience, and celebrated achievements, in trying to build a general A.I. Schank tried to summarize what he has learned about what sort of rates of progress we can reasonably expect, and of course he finds it hard to articulate precisely the reasons for those judgments. Because Schank admits to being too optimistic in his youth, Eliezer feels free to dismiss Schank’s judgment as “sloppy futurism”, and so worth far less weight than his own analysis. If we think we know why Schank would dismiss Eliezer’s judgement here, we have a good disagreement case study here to consider.