114: Computational Linguists
| Computational Linguists |
 Title text: Chomskyists, generative linguists, and Ryan North, your days are numbered. |
[edit] Explanation
Here Black Hat is criticising computational linguistics,which overlaps between various field like theoretical linguistics, artificial intelligence, etc. Linguistics itself is still a hotly debated subject, as is seen by the various conflicting theories on the origin of languages like the forms of Proto-Indo-European language.
The joke in the comic is that Black Hat, instead of trying to poke fun at angsty emo kids, decides to poke fun at computational linguists for their attempts to model natural languages on computers using the various contradictory theories that are floating around nowadays. The alt-text is a reference to some of the people who contributed to language theory.
Ryan North is the author of the webcomic Dinosaur Comics. His characters often discuss things like linguistics.
[edit] Transcript
- [Black Hat is standing next to a large badge which says FUCK Computational Lingustics]
- Black Hat: And the dumbest thing about emo kids is that... I... You know, I'm sick of easy targets. Anyone can make fun of emo kids. You know who's had it too easy? Computational Linguists. "Ooh, look at me! My field is so ill-defined, I can subscribe to any of dozens of contradictory models and still be taken seriously!"
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