Comment by stillpointlab

I agree that is something we need to learn a lot more about, but a human child's brain does not appear to be necessary to learn language and I argue the evidence supports that.

The question isn't "are neural networks just like human brains?" It is "can statistical models generate and understand language?"

The answer to the actual question under discussion appears to be a resounding yes. It does not appear that learning language is innate in the way that Chomsky has argued.

It may be that learning language as efficiently as human children will involve some innate property that we have not yet discovered. But that is a perfect example of moving the goal posts. We go from "there is something special about the brain that allows us to learn language, something that cannot be reproduced statistically" to "there is something special about the brain that allows us to learn language efficiently, more than statistical models".