“To date, though simulation has proved extremely valuable for all kinds of scientific and engineering applications, as well as video games and in creating CGI for films, it has proven much less effective for commonsense reasoning for AI.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Physical simulation has proven much less effective for AI commonsense reasoning than for scientific, engineering, and entertainment applications.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Gary Marcus wrote it
Marcus on AI, AI still lacks “common” sense, 70 years later, paragraph 15.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment marcus-ai-still-lacks-common-sense-70-years-4037bf-a2
We recorded 15 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2025-01-05. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- To date
- simulation has proved extremely valuable
- scientific and engineering applications
- video games and in creating CGI for films
- much less effective for commonsense reasoning for AI
Our interpretation
- The ordinary reading compares demonstrated practical usefulness across application areas, rather than claiming simulation never helps commonsense reasoning.
- I read 'much less effective' as a substantial difference in established breadth and reliability of useful applications.
- 'To date' describes the accumulated record through January 5, 2025; no historical starting date is supplied.
Counts as supported if: A sufficiently broad evaluation or deployment record establishes substantially greater practical effectiveness in the named scientific, engineering and entertainment applications than in AI commonsense reasoning.
Counts as contradicted if: Evidence establishes comparably broad and reliable practical effectiveness for simulation-based commonsense reasoning.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
Disney documents simulation for snow effects in Frozen (2013), and NASA describes an aircraft-design simulation application from 2024 [e1, e2]. A July 2024 study reports successful generalization by a simulation-based intuitive-physics model [e3]. These examples do not establish or refute a substantial cross-domain difference in breadth, reliability and practical usefulness through January 5, 2025 [e1, e2, e3].
Limitations
- The evidence supplies no common effectiveness measure or broad comparison across the named domains.
- The intuitive-physics study does not establish general commonsense competence or broad practical deployment.
- The NASA text describes a 2024 application, but the inspected page carries a June 22, 2026 update date.
Evidence (3 items)
Context only: Walt Disney Animation Studios,
creating snow effects
Why it matters here: This documents a concrete entertainment application of physical simulation. The page gives April 2019 as its update month; available_at uses that month's end conservatively.
- Publisher
- Walt Disney Animation Studios
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: NASA,
one simulation
Why it matters here: NASA describes practical aircraft-design simulation capabilities. The article was published in May 2024, but available_at conservatively records the displayed last-update date for the text read; the application described belongs to 2024.
- Publisher
- NASA
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Wang et al., Cognitive Science Society; Kevin A. Smith,
generalized in human-like ways
Why it matters here: The research reports successful generalization by an intuitive-physics simulation model across physical-prediction tasks. This is material evidence against dismissing simulation's reasoning usefulness, but does not measure effectiveness relative to engineering or entertainment; availability uses the end of the stated month.
- Where
- Abstract
- Publisher
- Wang et al., Cognitive Science Society; Kevin A. Smith
- Kind of source
- Peer-reviewed paper
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
A systematic comparison of simulation's application breadth, reliability and practical usefulness across the named domains through January 5, 2025, sufficient to establish or refute the claimed substantial difference.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Marcus on AI, AI still lacks “common” sense, 70 years later
To date, though simulation has proved extremely valuable for all kinds of scientific and engineering applications, as well as video games and in creating CGI for films, it has proven much less effective for commonsense reasoning for AI.
- Where
- paragraph 15
- Published
- 2025-01-05
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment marcus-ai-still-lacks-common-sense-70-years-4037bf-a2: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment marcus-ai-still-lacks-common-sense-70-years-4037bf-a2.