“Over and over I have stressed that you could have a good model of engineering without being a good model of humans, or vice versa.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Marcus has repeatedly stressed that a model could be a good model for engineering without being a good model of humans, or vice versa.
Assessment: Supported Evidence as of
Where and when Gary Marcus wrote it
Marcus on AI, The New Sport of Misrepresenting AI Criticism, paragraph 30.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment marcus-the-new-sport-of-misrepresenting-854a4c-a1
We recorded 8 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-29. The source may have been edited after 2022-09-23. 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)
Conditions
- over and over (qualifier, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- Over and over I have stressed
- a good model of engineering
- without being a good model of humans
- or vice versa
Our interpretation
- The plain reading is that Marcus publicly distinguished engineering usefulness from faithfully reproducing human cognition on multiple earlier occasions.
- Equivalent examples count; he need not have repeated this exact sentence.
- The target is his public record before the post, with no stated beginning.
- Interview records are evidence that he expressed these views, not evidence that his technical views were correct.
Counts as supported if: Multiple independently hosted earlier interviews or reports show Marcus distinguishing engineering goals from reproducing human cognitive behavior, including recognizing that faithfully copying human limitations can be undesirable.
Counts as contradicted if: A documented examination of the relevant earlier record shows that the alleged repeated distinction was absent or misattributed, and that he instead consistently required useful AI to reproduce human cognition.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Supported
The dated evidence matches what the claim committed to, under the criteria frozen before grading.
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
Separate records from 2015, 2016, and February 2022 show Marcus distinguishing useful engineering from reproducing human cognition. He discussed computer memory as preferable to human memory, separated engineering performance from psychological explanation, and advocated learning from biology without copying its defects. These support the ordinary meaning of his claim of repeated emphasis.
Limitations
- The records establish the recurring distinction, not repetition of the exact sentence.
- This does not establish that every statement in his career maintained the distinction.
Evidence (3 items)
Supports the claim: Emerj; Dan Faggella,
designed from scratch
Why it matters here: Faggella's interview report describes Marcus contrasting evolved human memory with more reliable computer memory. It records an earlier example of engineering desirability differing from human fidelity; the quotation preserves the source's apparent typo.
- Publisher
- Emerj; Dan Faggella
- Kind of source
- News report
- Describes events of
- Public from
Supports the claim: Edge,
Psychologists aren't engineers
Why it matters here: In the surrounding passage, Marcus distinguishes engineering task performance from explaining what people do and their internal representations. This is a separate public statement of the distinction.
- Publisher
- Edge
- Kind of source
- News report
- Describes events of
- Public from
Supports the claim: Sean Carroll's Mindscape,
the right word is inspiration
Why it matters here: Marcus goes on to explain that AI should learn from biology without copying human confirmation bias or poor memory. The host's transcript records another pre-post occasion separating useful design from human imitation.
- Publisher
- Sean Carroll's Mindscape
- Kind of source
- News report
- Describes events of
- Public from
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Marcus on AI, The New Sport of Misrepresenting AI Criticism
Over and over I have stressed that you could have a good model of engineering without being a good model of humans, or vice versa.
- Where
- paragraph 30
- Published
- 2022-09-23
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment marcus-the-new-sport-of-misrepresenting-854a4c-a1: Current. Outcome: Supported. 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-the-new-sport-of-misrepresenting-854a4c-a1.