Fair enough, and I was using "understand" metaphorically.
What I see happening, though, is that events (not problems, as such, really) are being redefined so that the new shiny tools can be applied to it. Even though positivism is not the strong influence it was mid-century, it is still around.
So what we are seeing, in my opinion, is that the Machine Learning is becoming sophisticated in handling an impoverished problem. It is one of the ways cargo cult science evolves from real inquiry.
The humanities people, for the most part, will see right through this.
For what it's worth, my talk was popular with a small set of conference attendees, all (?) of whom had some connection with the arts and humanities, in addition to being Mathematica users. For the rest of the conference, these ideas are pretty much below the RADAR.
It's really too bad, because I can see that the STEM people really need the help of the humanities if they are to avoid pursuing blind alleys.
