Suppose also that after a while I get so good at following the instructions for manipulating the Chinese symbols and the programmers get so good at writing the programs that from the external point of view—that is, from the point of view of somebody outside the room in which I am locked—my answers to the questions are absolutely indistinguishable from those of native Chinese speakers.
You have to put Searle in his historical context. In 1980 when he published the paradigm was "Expert Systems" which functioned according to an algorithm that Searle ... some would say "parodies" but actually captures the basics of how they work. The same sort of claims were made for them that one hears for the modern generation of AIs, and the same sort of objections about why the entire program of non-human thought is wrong-headed. So to speak.
He argued with Richard Rorty, who sadly died before he could comment on the current machines. Rorty insisted that the whole notion of manipulating an "internal representation" of "external reality" was not how people did business. Much recommend Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
IMHO Rorty and others elaborating on the system objection to the Chinese Room are, generally, just clearly correct. Searle's room seems like it's sort of like a zombie, it's pretty cleanly dead inside of philosophy but it lives on in the general culture as a thought-terminating cliche about anything to do with AI.
I am mostly writing it up because it's a conversation I have had repeatedly, honestly, and I would much rather link people to something of mine that's short (and is basically what I would say and have said in conversation) than something of someone else's that's long.
You have to put Searle in his historical context. In 1980 when he published the paradigm was "Expert Systems" which functioned according to an algorithm that Searle ... some would say "parodies" but actually captures the basics of how they work. The same sort of claims were made for them that one hears for the modern generation of AIs, and the same sort of objections about why the entire program of non-human thought is wrong-headed. So to speak.
He argued with Richard Rorty, who sadly died before he could comment on the current machines. Rorty insisted that the whole notion of manipulating an "internal representation" of "external reality" was not how people did business. Much recommend Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
IMHO Rorty and others elaborating on the system objection to the Chinese Room are, generally, just clearly correct. Searle's room seems like it's sort of like a zombie, it's pretty cleanly dead inside of philosophy but it lives on in the general culture as a thought-terminating cliche about anything to do with AI.
I am mostly writing it up because it's a conversation I have had repeatedly, honestly, and I would much rather link people to something of mine that's short (and is basically what I would say and have said in conversation) than something of someone else's that's long.