Saying everything is just probabilistic associations is like saying everything is made from quanta of energy and thus every higher level concept or model is useless -- just simulate the quarks and you are set. Not only that -- simulate it by recording and observing the energy patterns going in and coming out of a black box.
Yes you can get some things to work and some to work well but the idea is that perhaps there is a better model that describes the mechanism or the encoding of meaning. That's what Chomsky is trying to say in this particular article. Some stopping at a brute force approach is a fine engineering approach but that doesn't mean everyone should, it is still worth trying to find a better model for it, if at least, just to gain an understanding.
Yes you can get some things to work and some to work well but the idea is that perhaps there is a better model that describes the mechanism or the encoding of meaning. That's what Chomsky is trying to say in this particular article. Some stopping at a brute force approach is a fine engineering approach but that doesn't mean everyone should, it is still worth trying to find a better model for it, if at least, just to gain an understanding.