A cognitive scientist, she used the language of computers to explore the nature of human thought and creativity, offering prescient insights about A.I.
...She was among the skeptics.
“The notion of there ever being a time where we could have a natural language-using program which was able really to converse in a rich and subtle way with an intelligent and educated human being about anything under the sun — from, you know, football to fossils — seems to me to be a fantasy,” she said on “The Life Scientific.”
Today, such abilities actually exist with large language models like ChatGPT. Professor Boden entered a care home before these tools emerged and wasn’t able to use them.
I put the question to ChatGPT: Would Professor Boden have been surprised by its existence?
“Margaret Boden probably wouldn’t have been shocked that something like ChatGPT exists — but she would likely have been both fascinated and deeply critical,” ChatGPT responded. “She stressed that computers don’t ‘think’ or ‘understand’ in the way humans do — they manipulate symbols without consciousness or intentionality.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/science/margaret-boden-dead.html?smid=em-share
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