Witgenstein's influence on artificial intelligence

TL;DR

This paper explores the influence of Wittgenstein's philosophical ideas on modern AI and natural language processing, analyzing how his theories have shaped current approaches and their limitations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of Wittgenstein's impact on AI, especially in natural language processing, highlighting both historical influence and contemporary relevance.

Findings

Wittgenstein's ideas significantly shaped NLP development.

Current AI strengths are partly rooted in Wittgenstein's philosophy.

The paper discusses limitations of Wittgenstein's influence on AI.

Abstract

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.