Witgenstein's influence on artificial intelligence

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.