Chinese Room Argument Summary

The chinese room argument aims to refute a certain conception of the role of computation in human cognition.

Chinese room argument summary. An argument against computers ever being truly intelligent. The point of the argument is to refute the idea that computers now or in the future can literally think. Philosopher john searle goes through the chinese room argument to prove that no matter how powerful computers are they aren t minds. The chinese room argument is primarily an argument in the philosophy of mind and both major computer scientists and artificial intelligence researchers consider it irrelevant to their fields.

The chinese room argument is a thought experiment of john searle 1980a and associated 1984 derivation. The chinese room argument is a refutation of strong artificial intelligence strong ai the view that an appropriately programmed digital computer capable of passing the turing test would thereby have mental states and a mind in the same sense in which human beings have mental states and a mind. According to searle s original presentation the argument is based on two key claims. There is a room.

It is one of the best known and widely credited counters to claims of artificial intelligence ai that is to claims that computers do or at least can someday might think. The word understand has been unduly stretched in the case of the chinese room 175. Searle actually believes that his argument works against non classical computers as well but it is best to start with the digital computers with which we are all most familiar the chinese room. In order to understand the argument it is necessary to see the distinction between strong and weak versions of artificial intelligence.

Searle asks you to imagine the following scenario. Discuss the chinese room argument. The paper referred to a thought experiment which argued against the possibility that computers can ever have artificial intelligence ai. In essence a condemnation that machines will ever be.

Gardiner addresses the chinese room argument in his book the mind s new science 1985 171 177. He calls his argument the chinese room argument note. Gardiner considers all the standard replies to the chinese room argument and concludes that searle is correct about the room. According to strong artificial intelligence any system that implements the right computer program with the right inputs and outputs thereby has.

In 1980 john searle began a widespread dispute with his paper minds brains and programmes searle 1980.