Even with the rise of large language models such as ChatGPT in the last year, I was still convinced that a mode of reasoning known as inference to the best explanation (abbreviated IBE) was not within the competence of artificial intelligence. In fact, I thought it forever beyond the reach of artificial intelligence. I commended Erik Larson’s book The Myth of Artificial Intelligence (reviewed here) for making what in 2021 seemed like an ironclad case that artificial intelligence research was stymied in trying to model and implement inference to the best explanation, or what has also been called abduction (in contrast to deduction and induction).  This week, however, all that has changed for me. I posed a question to ChatGPT4 (hereafter ChatGPT), Read More ›