The Chinese Room and Artificial Intelligence

Paper Summary:

This paper introduces the "Chinese Room" argument proposed by John Searle that cognitive understanding by a machine is impossible. It attempts to show artificially intelligent (AI) brains can, in fact, understand ideas in a human sense by comparing languages used by both humans and AI. It also compares the methods by which both humans and AI learn about their environments and uses juxtapositions between language acquisition and environment to show that human and artificial brains are in fact the same.

From the Paper:

"While an individual program may not have true understanding abilities, a robot, complete with sensory perception units could. A brain knows where its sensory information comes from, whether it is ear, eye, skin, mouth or nose, and the brain can understand. Therefore, the man should be told from which sensory unit the symbols come, if it is to understand as the brain does. In addition, a brain is capable of knowing how to recognize individual objects. The English man, while he gets his information in Chinese, is able to write down patterns and then attempt to explain what is actually happening outside."

More papers on The Chinese Room and Artificial Intelligence:

• Essay # 138150 : "Rebuttals to Searle’s Chinese Room Argument"
• Essay # 6376 : "The Possibility of Intrinsically Intelligent Artificial Intelligence"
• Argumentative Essay # 137240 : "Searle's Theory on Artificial Intelligence"

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